Suspect

1.

They were on that particular street at that specific T-intersection at that crazy hour because Scott James was hungry. Stephanie shut off their patrol car to please him. They could have been anywhere else, but he led her there, that night, to that silent intersection. It was so quiet that night, they spoke of it.

Unnaturally quiet.

They stopped three blocks from the Harbor Freeway between rows of crappy four-story buildings everyone said would be torn down to build a new stadium if the Dodgers left Chavez Ravine. The buildings and streets in that part of town were deserted. No homeless people. No traffic. No reason for anyone to be there that night, even an LAPD radio car.

Stephanie frowned.

“You sure you know where you’re going?”

“I know where I’m going. Just hang on.”

Scott was trying to find an all-night noodle house a Rampart Robbery detective had raved about, one of those pop-up places that takes over an empty storefront for a couple of months, hypes itself on Twitter, then disappears; a place the robbery dick claimed had the most amazing ramen in Los Angeles, Latin-Japanese fusion, flavors you couldn’t get anywhere else, cilantro-tripe, abalone-chili, a jalapeño-duck to die for.

Scott was trying to figure out how he had screwed up the directions when he suddenly heard it.

“Listen.”

“What?”

“Shh, listen. Turn off the engine.”

“You have no idea where this place is, do you?”

“You have to hear this. Listen.”

Uniformed LAPD officer Stephanie Anders, a P-III with eleven years on the job, shifted into Park, turned off their Adam car, and stared at him. She had a fine, tanned face with lines at the corners of her eyes, and short, sandy hair.

Scott James, a thirty-two-year-old P-II with seven years on the job, grinned as he touched his ear, telling her to listen. Stephanie seemed lost for a moment, then blossomed with a wide smile.

“It’s quiet.”

“Crazy, huh? No radio calls. No chatter. I can’t even hear the freeway.”

It was a beautiful spring night: temp in the mid-sixties, clear; the kind of windows-down, short-sleeve weather Scott enjoyed. Their call log that night showed less than a third their usual number of calls, which made for an easy shift, but left Scott bored. Hence, their search for the unfindable noodle house, which Scott had begun to believe might not exist.

Stephanie reached to start the car, but Scott stopped her.

“Let’s sit for a minute. How many times you hear silence like this?”

“Never. This is so cool, it’s creeping me out.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

Stephanie laughed, and Scott loved how the streetlights gleamed in her eyes. He wanted to touch her hand, but didn’t. They had been partners for ten months, but now Scott was leaving, and there were things he wanted to say.

“You’ve been a good partner.”

“Are you going to get all gooey on me?”

“Yeah. Kinda.”

“Okay, well, I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you more.”

Their little joke. Everything a competition, even to who would miss the other the most. Again he wanted to touch her hand, but then she reached out and took his hand in hers, and gave him a squeeze.

“No, you’re not. You’re going to kick ass, take names, and have a blast. It’s what you want, man, and I couldn’t be happier. You’re a stud.”

Scott laughed. He had played football for two years at the University of Redlands before blowing his knee, and joined LAPD a couple of years later. He took night classes for the next four years to finish his degree. Scott James had goals. He was young, determined, and competitive, and wanted to run with the big dogs. He had been accepted into LAPD’s Metro Division, the elite uniformed division that backed up area-based officers throughout the city. Metro was a highly trained reserve force that rolled out on crime suppression details, barricade situations, and high-conflict security operations. They were the best, and also a necessary assignment for officers who hoped to join LAPD’s most elite uniformed assignment—SWAT. The best of the best. Scott’s transfer to Metro would come at the end of the week.

Stephanie was still holding his hand, and Scott was wondering what she meant by it, when an enormous Bentley sedan appeared at the end of the street, as out of place in this neighborhood as a flying carpet, windows up, smoked glass, not a speck of dust on its gleaming skin.

Stephanie said, “Check out the Batmobile.”

The Bentley oozed past their nose, barely making twenty miles per hour. Its glass was so dark the driver was invisible.

“Want to light him up?”

“For what, being rich? He’s probably lost like us.”

“We can’t be lost. We’re the police.”

“Maybe he’s looking for the same stupid ramen place.”

“You win. Let’s forget the ramen and grab some eggs.”

Stephanie reached to start their car as the slow-motion Bentley approached the next T-intersection thirty yards past them. At the moment it reached the intersecting street, a deep, throaty growl shattered the perfect silence, and a black Kenworth truck exploded from the cross street. It T-boned the Bentley so hard the six-thousand-pound sedan rolled completely over and came to rest right side up on the opposite side of the street. The Kenworth skidded sideways and stopped, blocking the street.

Stephanie said, “Holy crap!”

Scott slapped on their flashers, and pushed out of their car. The flashers painted the street and surrounding buildings with blue kaleidoscope pulses.

Stephanie keyed her shoulder mike as she got out, searching for a street sign.

“Where are we? What street is this?”

Scott spotted the sign.

“Harmony, three blocks south of the Harbor.”

“Two-Adam-twenty-four, we have an injury accident at Harmony, three blocks south of the Harbor Freeway and four north of Wilshire. Request paramedics and fire. Officers assisting.”

Scott was three paces ahead, and closer to the Bentley.

“I got the Batmobile. You get the truck.”

Stephanie broke into a trot, and the two veered apart. No one and nothing else moved on the street except steam hissing from beneath the Bentley’s hood.

They were halfway to the accident when bright yellow bursts flashed within the truck and a hammering chatter echoed between the buildings.

Scott thought something was exploding within the truck’s cab, then bullets ripped into their patrol car and the Bentley with the thunder of steel rain. Scott instinctively jumped sideways as Stephanie went down. She screamed once, and wrapped her arms across her chest.

“I’m shot. Oh, crap—”

Scott dropped to the ground and covered his head. Bullets sparked off the concrete around him, and gouged ruts in the street.

Move. Do something.

Scott rolled sideways, drew his pistol, and fired at the flashes as fast as he could. He pushed to his feet, and zigzagged toward his partner as an old, dark gray Gran Torino screamed down the street. It screeched to a stop beside the Bentley, but Scott barely saw it. He fired blindly at the truck as he ran, and zigged hard toward his partner.

Stephanie was clutching herself as if doing stomach crunches. Scott grabbed her arm. He realized the men in the truck had stopped firing, and thought they might make it even as Stephanie screamed.

Two men wearing black masks and bulky jackets boiled out of the sedan with pistols and lit up the Bentley, shattering the glass and punching holes in its body. The driver stayed at the wheel. As they fired, two more masked men climbed from the truck with AK-47 rifles.

Scott dragged Stephanie toward their black-and-white, slipped in her blood, then started backwards again.

The first man out of the truck was tall and thin, and immediately opened fire into the Bentley’s windshield. The second man was thick, with a large gut that bulged over his belt. He swung his rifle toward Scott, and the AK-47 bloomed with yellow flowers.

Something punched Scott hard in the thigh, and he lost his grip on Stephanie and his pistol. He sat down hard, and saw blood welling from his leg. Scott picked up his pistol, fired two more shots, and his pistol locked open. Empty. He pushed to his knees, and took Stephanie’s arm again.

“I’m dying.”

Scott said, “No, you’re not. I swear to God you’re not.”

A second bullet slammed into the top of his shoulder, knocking him down. Scott lost Stephanie and his pistol again, and his left arm went numb.

The big man must have thought Scott was done. He turned to his friends, and when he turned, Scott crabbed toward their patrol car, dragging his useless leg and pushing with his good. The car was their only cover. If he made it to the car, he could use it as a weapon or a shield to reach Stephanie.

Scott keyed his shoulder mike as he scuttled backwards, and whispered as loudly as he dared.

“Officer down! Shots fired, shots fired! Two-Adam-twenty-four, we’re dying out here!”

The men from the gray sedan threw open the Bentley’s doors and fired inside. Scott glimpsed passengers, but saw only shadows. Then the firing stopped, and Stephanie called out behind him. Her voice bubbled with blood, and cut him like knives.

“Don’t leave me! Scotty, don’t leave!”

Scott pushed harder, desperate to reach the car. Shotgun in the car. Keys in the ignition.

“DON’T LEAVE ME!”

“I’m not, baby. I’m not.”

“COME BACK!”

Scott was five yards from their patrol car when the big man heard Stephanie. He turned, saw Scott, then lifted his rifle and fired.

Scott James felt the third impact as the bullet punched through his vest on the lower right side of his chest. The pain was intense, and quickly grew worse as his abdominal cavity filled with pooling blood.

Scott slowed to a stop. He tried to crawl farther, but his strength was gone. He leaned back on an elbow, and waited for the big man to shoot him again, but the big man turned toward the Bentley.

Sirens were coming.

Black figures were inside the Bentley, but Scott couldn’t see what they were doing. The driver of the gray sedan twisted to see the shooters, and pulled up his mask as he turned. Scott saw a flash of white on the man’s cheek, and then the men in and around the Bentley ran into the Torino.

The big man was the last. He hesitated by the sedan’s open door, once more looked at Scott, and raised his rifle.

Scott screamed.

“NO!”

Scott tried to jump out of the way as the sirens faded into a soothing voice.

“Wake up, Scott.”

“NO!”

“Three, two, one—”

Nine months and sixteen days after he was shot that night, nine months and sixteen days after he saw his partner murdered, Scott James screamed when he woke.

2.

Scott threw himself out of the line of fire so violently when he woke, he was always surprised he had not jumped off his shrink’s couch. He knew from experience he only made a small lurch. He woke from the enhanced regression the same way each time, jumping from the dream state of his memory as the big man raised the AK-47. Scott took careful, deep breaths, and tried to slow his thundering heart.

Goodman’s voice came from across the dim room. Charles Goodman, M.D. Psychiatrist. Goodman did contract work with the Los Angeles Police Department, but was not an LAPD employee.

“Deep breaths, Scott. You feel okay?”

“I’m okay.”

His heart pounded, his hands trembled, and cold sweat covered his chest, but as with the violent lunge that Goodman saw as only a tiny lurch, Scott was good at downplaying his feelings.

Goodman was an overweight man in his forties with a pointy beard, a ponytail, sandals, and toenail fungus. His small office was on the second floor of a two-story stucco building in Studio City next to the L.A. River channel. Scott’s first shrink had a much nicer office in Chinatown at the LAPD’s Behavioral Science Services, but Scott didn’t like her. She reminded him of Stephanie.

“Would you like some water?”

“No. No, I’m fine.”

Scott swung his feet off the couch, and grimaced at the tightness in his shoulder and side. He grew stiff when he sat for too long, so standing and moving helped ease the pain. He also needed a few seconds to adjust when he left the hypnotic state, like stepping from a sun-bright street into a dark bar. This was his fifth enhanced regression into the events of that night, but something about this regression left him confused and uncertain. Then he remembered, and looked at his shrink.

“Sideburns.”

Goodman opened a notebook, ready to write. Goodman constantly wrote.

“Sideburns?”

“The man driving the getaway car. He had white sideburns. These bushy white sideburns.”

Goodman made a quick note in his book, then riffled back through the pages.

“You haven’t described sideburns before?”

Scott strained to remember. Had he? Had he recalled the sideburns, but simply not mentioned them? He questioned himself, but already knew the answer.

“I didn’t remember them before. Not until now. I remember them now.”

Goodman scribbled furiously, but all the fast writing made Scott feel more doubtful.

“You think I really saw them, or am I imagining this?”

Goodman held up a hand to finish his note before speaking.

“Let’s not go there yet. I want you to tell me what you remember. Don’t second-guess yourself. Just tell me what you recall.”

The memory of what he saw was clear.

“When I heard the sirens, he turned toward the shooters. He pulled up his mask when he turned.”

“He was wearing the same mask?”

Scott had always described the five shooters in exactly the same way.

“Yeah, the black knit ski mask. He pulled it up partway, and I saw the sideburns. They were long, here below the lobe. Might have been gray, like silver?”

Scott touched the side of his face by his ear, trying to see the image even more clearly—a faraway face in bad light, but there was the flash of white.

“Describe what you saw.”

“I only saw part of his jaw. He had these white sideburns.”

“Skin tone?”

“I don’t know. White, maybe, or Latin or a light-skinned black guy.”

“Don’t guess. Only describe what you clearly remember.”

“I can’t say.”

“Can you see his ear?”

“I saw part of his ear, but it was so far away.”

“Hair?”

“Only the sideburns. He only raised the mask partway, but it was enough to see the sideburns. Jesus, I remember them so clearly now. Am I making this up?”

Scott had read extensively about manufactured memories, and memories recovered while under hypnosis. Such memories were viewed with suspicion, and were never used by L.A. County prosecutors. They were too easily attacked, and created reasonable doubt.

Goodman closed his notebook on the pen.

“Making this up as in imagining you saw something you didn’t?”

“Yeah.”

“You tell me. Why would you?”

Scott hated when Goodman went all psychiatrist on him, asking Scott to supply his own answers, but Scott had been seeing the man for seven months, so he grudgingly accepted the drill.

Scott had awakened two days after the shooting with a vivid memory of the events that night. During three weeks of intensive questioning by the Homicide Special detectives in charge of the investigation, Scott described the five shooters as best he could, but was unable to provide any more identifying detail than if the men had been featureless silhouettes. All five had been masked, gloved, and clothed from head to foot. None limped or had missing limbs. Scott had heard no voices, and could not provide eye, hair, or skin color, or such identifying information as visible tattoos, jewelry, scars, or affectations. No fingerprints or usable DNA had been found on the cartridge casings, in the Kenworth, or in the Ford Gran Torino found abandoned only eight blocks away. Despite the case being handled by an elite team of detectives from the LAPD’s Homicide Special detail, no suspects had been identified, all leads were exhausted, and the investigation had ground to an inevitable, glacial halt.

Nine months and sixteen days after Scott James was shot, the five men who shot him and murdered Stephanie Anders remained free.

They were still out there.

The five men who murdered Stephanie.

The killers.

Scott glanced at Goodman, and felt himself flush.

“Because I want to help. Because I want to feel like I’m doing something to catch these bastards, so I’m making up bullshit descriptions.”

Because I’m alive and Stephanie’s dead.

Scott was relieved when Goodman wrote none of this down. Instead, Goodman smiled.

“I find this encouraging.”

“That I’m manufacturing memories?”

“There’s no reason to believe you’ve manufactured anything. You’ve described the large elements of that night consistently since the beginning, from your conversation with Stephanie, to the makes and models of the vehicles, to where the shooters were standing when they fired their weapons. Everything you described that could be confirmed has been confirmed, but so much was happening so quickly that night, and under such incredible stress, it’s the tiny things we tend to lose.”

Goodman always got into it when he described memory. Memory was his thing. He leaned forward, and pinched his thumb and forefinger together to show Scott what he meant by “tiny.”

“Don’t forget, you remembered the cartridge casings in our first regression. You didn’t remember hearing the Kenworth’s engine before you saw the truck until our fourth regression.”

Our regressions. As if Goodman had been there with him, getting shot to pieces while Stephanie died. Regardless, Scott had to admit Goodman had a point. It wasn’t until Scott’s first regression that he recalled the spent casings twinkling like a brass rainbow as they arced from the big man’s rifle, and he hadn’t recalled hearing the Kenworth rev its engine until the fourth regression.

Goodman leaned so far forward, Scott thought he might fall from his chair. He was totally into it now.

“When the little details begin coming back—the tiny memories forgotten in the stress of the moment—the research suggests you may begin remembering more and more, as each new memory leads to another, the way water trickles through a crack in a dam, faster and faster until the dam breaks, and the water floods through.”

Scott frowned.

“Meaning, my brain is falling apart?”

Goodman returned Scott’s frown with a smile, and opened his notebook again.

“Meaning, you should feel encouraged. You wanted to examine what happened that night. This is what we’re doing.”

Scott did not respond. He used to believe he wanted to explore that night, but more and more he wanted to forget, though forgetting seemed beyond him. He relived it, reviewed it, and obsessed about it constantly, hating that night but unable to leave it.

Scott glanced at the time, saw they only had ten minutes remaining, and stood.

“Let’s bag it for today, okay? I want to think about this.”

Goodman made no move to close his notebook. He cleared his throat, instead, which was his way of changing the subject.

“We still have a few minutes. I want to check in with you about a few things.”

Check in. Shrink jargon for asking more questions about things Scott didn’t want to talk about.

“Sure. About what?”

“Whether the regressions are helping.”

“I remembered the sideburns. You just told me they’re helping.”

“Not in what you remember, but in helping you cope. Are you having fewer nightmares?”

Nightmares had shattered his sleep four or five times a week since his fourth day in the hospital. Most were like short clips cut from a longer film of that night’s events—the big man shooting at him, the big man raising his rifle, Scott slipping in Stephanie’s blood, and the impact of bullets punching into his body. But more and more were paranoid nightmares where the masked men were hunting him. They jumped from his closet or hid under his bed or appeared in the back seat of his car. His most recent nightmare had been last night.

Scott said, “A lot less. I haven’t had a nightmare in two or three weeks.”

Goodman made a note in his book.

“You attribute this to the regressions?”

“What else?”

Goodman made a satisfied nod, along with another note.

“How’s your social life?”

“Social life is fine if you mean grabbing a beer with the guys. I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Are you looking?”

“Is mindless small talk a requirement for mental health?”

“No. Not at all.”

“I just want someone I can relate to, you know? Someone who understands what it’s like to be me.”

Goodman made an encouraging smile.

“In the fullness of time, you’ll meet someone. Few things are more healing than falling in love.”

Few things would be more healing than forgetting, or catching the bastards who did this, but neither seemed to be in the cards.

Scott glanced at the clock, and was irritated to see they still had six minutes.

“Can we bag it for today? I’m tapped out, and I have to get to work.”

“One more thing. Let’s touch base about the new job.”

Scott glanced at the time again, and his impatience increased.

“What about it?”

“Have you gotten your dog? Last session, you said the dogs were on their way.”

“Got here last week. The chief trainer checks them out before he accepts them. He finished yesterday, and says we’re good to go. I get my dog this afternoon.”

“And then you’re back on the street.”

Scott knew where this was going and didn’t like it. They had been through this before.

“After we’re certified, yeah. That’s where K-9 officers do their job.”

“Face-to-face with the bad guys.”

“That’s kinda the point.”

“You almost died. Are you concerned this might happen again?”

Scott hesitated, but knew better than to pretend he had no fear. Scott had not wanted to be in a patrol car again, or sit behind a desk, but when he learned two slots were opening in the Metro K-9 Unit, he had lobbied hard for the job. He had completed the K-9 dog handler training course nine days ago.

“I think about it, sure, but all officers think about it. This is one of the reasons I want to stay on the job.”

“Not all officers are shot three times and lose their partner on the same night.”

Scott didn’t respond. Since the day he woke in the hospital, Scott had thought about leaving the job a thousand times. Most of his officer friends told him he was crazy not to take the medical, and the LAPD Personnel Division told him, because of the extent of his injuries, he would never be cleared to return, yet Scott pushed to stay on the job. Pushed his physical therapy. Pushed his commanding officers. Pushed his Metro boss hard to let him work with a dog. Scott would lie awake in the middle of the night, making up reasons for all the pushing: Maybe he didn’t know what else to do, maybe he had nothing else in his life, maybe he was trying to convince himself he was still the same man he was before the shooting. Meaningless words to fill the empty darkness, like the lies and half-truths he told to Goodman and everyone else, because saying unreal things was easier than saying real things. His unspoken, dead-of-night truth was that he felt as if he had died on the street beside Stephanie, and was now only a ghost pretending to be a man. Even his choice of being a K-9 officer was a pretense—that he could be a cop without a partner.

Scott realized the silence was dragging on, and found Goodman waiting.

Scott said, “If I walk away, the assholes who killed Stephanie win.”

“Why are you still seeing me?”

“To make peace with being alive.”

“I believe that’s true. But not the whole truth.”

“Then you tell me.”

Goodman glanced at the time again, and finally closed the notebook.

“Looks like we’re a few minutes over. This was a good session, Scott. Same time next week?”

Scott stood, hiding the stitch in his side that came with the sudden movement.

“Same time next week.”

Scott was opening the door when Goodman spoke again.

“I’m glad the regressions are helping. I hope you remember enough to find peace and closure.”

Scott hesitated, then walked out and down to the parking lot before he spoke again.

“I hope I remember enough to forget.”

Stephanie came to him every night, and it was his memories of her that tortured him—Stephanie slipping from his bloody grip, Stephanie begging him not to leave.

Don’t leave me!

Scotty, don’t leave!

Come back!

In his nightmares, it was her eyes and her pleading voice that filled him with anguish.

Stephanie Anders died believing he had abandoned her, and nothing he did now or in the future could change her final thoughts. She had died believing he had left her to save himself.

I’m here, Steph.

I didn’t leave you.

I was trying to save you.

Scott told her these things every night when she came to him, but Stephanie was dead and could not hear. He knew he would never be able to convince her, but he told her anyway, each time she came to him, trying to convince himself.

3.

The narrow parking lot behind Goodman’s building was furious with summer heat, and the air was sandpaper dry. Scott’s car was so hot, he used his handkerchief to open the door.

Scott bought the blue 1981 Trans Am two months before the shooting. The right rear fender had a nasty dent from the taillight to the door, the blue paint was pocked with corrosion, the radio didn’t work, and the odometer showed 126,000 miles. Scott had bought it for twelve hundred dollars as a weekend project, thinking he would rebuild the old car in his spare time, but after the shooting he lost interest. Nine months later, the car remained untouched.

When the air blew cold, Scott made his way to the Ventura Freeway and headed for Glendale.

The K-9 Platoon was headquartered with the Metro Division at the Central Station downtown, but used several sites around the city for training its dogs. The primary training site was in Glendale, which was a spacious facility where Scott and the other two new handlers had been trained as K-9 officers during an eight-week handler school run by the Unit’s veteran chief trainer. The student handlers trained with retired patrol dogs who no longer worked in the field due to health or injury issues. They were easy to work with and knew what was expected of them. In many ways, these dogs served as teachers for their baby handlers, but when the school cycle was completed, the training dogs would return to wherever they lived, and the new handlers would be partnered with pre-trained patrol dogs to begin a fourteen-week certification process. This was an exciting moment for the new handlers, as it meant they would begin bonding with their new dogs.

Scott knew he should feel excited, but felt only a dull readiness to work. Once Scott and his dog were certified, he would be alone with the dog in a car, and that’s what Scott wanted. The freedom to be alone. He had plenty of company with Stephanie.

Scott was passing the Hollywood split when his phone rang. The Caller ID showed LAPD, so he answered, thinking it was probably his K-9 Platoon Chief Trainer, Dominick Leland.

“This is Scott.”

A male voice spoke, but it wasn’t Leland.

“Officer James, I’m Bud Orso, here with Robbery-Homicide. I’m calling to introduce myself. I’m the new lead in charge of your case.”

Scott drove on without speaking. He had not spoken with his case investigators in more than three months.

“Officer, you still there? Did I lose you?”

“I’m here.”

“I’m the new lead in charge of your case.”

“I heard you. What happened to Melon?”

“Detective Melon retired last month. Detective Stengler was reassigned. We got a new team in here on this.”

Detective Melon was the former lead, and Stengler was his partner. Scott had not spoken with either man since the day Scott gimped into the Police Administration Building with his walker, and unloaded on Melon in front of the entire Homicide Special squad room because they had been unable to name a suspect or develop new leads after a five-month investigation. Melon had tried to walk away, but Scott grabbed him, fell out of his walker, and pulled Melon down with him. It was an ugly scene Scott regretted, and could have derailed Scott’s chance to return to the job. After the incident, Scott’s Metro boss, a Captain named Jeff Schmidt, cut a deal with the RHD commander, a Lieutenant named Carol Topping, who buried the incident. An act of compassion for an officer who was shot to shit in the street. Melon had not filed a complaint, but shut Scott out of the investigation and stopped returning his calls.

Scott said, “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

He didn’t know what else to say, but wondered why Orso sounded so friendly.

“Did Melon tell you what happened?”

“Yes, he told me. He said you were an ungrateful prick.”

“I am.”

Fuckit. Scott hadn’t cared what Melon thought of him, and didn’t care what the new guy thought, either, but he was surprised when Orso laughed.

“Look, I know you had a problem with him, but I’m the new guy. I’d like to meet you, and go over a couple of things in the file.”

Scott felt a flare of hope.

“Did Melon turn any new leads?”

“No, I can’t say that. This is just me, trying to get up to speed on what happened that night. Could you roll by sometime today?”

The flare of hope faded to a bitter ember. Orso sounded like a nice guy, but Scott had just relived what happened that night, and was fed up with talking about it.

“I’m on shift, then I have plans.”

Orso paused. This told Scott Orso knew Scott was giving him the brush.

Orso said, “How about tomorrow, or whenever is convenient?”

“Can I give you a call?”

Orso gave him his direct-dial number, and hung up.

Scott dropped his phone on the seat between his legs. The numbness he felt only moments earlier had been replaced with irritation. Scott wondered what Orso wanted to ask about, and if he should have mentioned the sideburns even though he didn’t know if they were real.

Scott cut across lanes and veered toward the city. He punched in Orso’s number as he passed Griffith Park.

“Detective Orso, it’s Scott James again. If you’re there now, I can swing by.”

“I’m here. You remember where we are?”

Scott smiled at that, and wondered if this was Orso’s idea of a joke.

“I remember.”

“Try not to hit anyone when you get here.”

Scott didn’t laugh, and neither did Orso.

Scott phoned Dominick Leland next, and told him he wouldn’t be in to see the new dogs. Leland growled like a German shepherd.

“Why in hell not?”

“I’m on my way to the Boat.”

“Fuck the Boat. There is nothing and no one in that damned building more important than these dogs. I did not let you into my K-9 platoon to waste time with those people down there.”

Robbery-Homicide housed their special units on the fifth floor of the Police Administration Building. The PAB was a ten-story structure across from City Hall. The side of the PAB facing City Hall was a thin, pointy, triangular glass wedge. This made the PAB look like the prow of a ship, so rank-and-file officers dubbed it the Boat.

“They want me at Robbery-Homicide. It’s about the case.”

Leland’s growl softened.

“Your case?”

“Yes, sir. I’m on my way now.”

Leland’s voice turned gruff again.

“All right, then, get your ass here as soon as you can.”

Scott never wore his uniform to Goodman’s office. He kept his uniform in a gym bag and his handgun in a lockbox in the trunk. He dropped off the freeway on First Street, and changed in the Boat’s parking garage. He expected more than a few detectives to give him the glare because of his scene with Melon. Scott didn’t give a rat’s ass, either way. He wanted to remind them he was a police officer.

Scott showed his badge and LAPD ID card to the lobby receptionist, and told her he was there to see Orso. She made a brief call, then gave Scott a different ID card to clip to his shirt.

“He’s expecting you. You know where they are?”

“I know.”

Scott tried not to limp as he crossed the lobby, which wasn’t so easy with all the steel in his leg. The night they wheeled him into the Good Samaritan emergency room, Scott had surgeries on his thigh, shoulder, and lower chest. Three more surgeries followed later that same week, with two additional surgeries six weeks later. The leg wound cost him three pounds of muscle tissue, needed a steel rod and six screws to rebuild his femur, and left him with nerve damage. The shoulder reconstruction required three plates, eight screws, and also left him with nerve damage. The PT after the multiple surgeries had been painful, but he was doing okay. You just had to be tougher than the pain, and eat a few painkillers.

Bud Orso was in his early forties, with a chubby scoutmaster’s face topped by a crown of short black hair. He was waiting when Scott stepped off the elevator, which Scott had not expected.

“Bud Orso. Pleasure to meet you, though I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

Orso had a surprisingly strong grip, but released Scott quickly and led him toward the Homicide Special offices.

“I’ve been living with this file since they handed me the case. Horrible, what happened that night. How long have you been back on the job?”

“Eleven weeks.”

Polite conversation. Scott was already irritated, and wondered what was waiting for him in the Homicide Special squad room.

“I’m surprised they let you.”

“Let me what?”

“Come back. You were squared up for a medical.”

Scott didn’t respond. He was already tired of talking, and sorry he came.

Orso noted the K-9 patch on Scott’s shoulder as they walked.

“K-9. That should be interesting.”

“Better. They do what you say, don’t talk back, and it’s only a dog.”

Orso finally took the hint and fell silent as he led Scott into Homicide Special. Scott felt himself tense when he stepped through the door, but only five detectives were scattered about the room, and none glanced over or acknowledged him in any way. He followed Orso into a small conference room with a rectangular table and five chairs. A large black file box was on the floor at the head of the table. Scott saw his transcribed statements spread across the table, and statements made by the friends and families of the two men who had been inside the Bentley, a real estate developer named Eric Pahlasian, the driver, who had been shot sixteen times, and his cousin from France, a real estate attorney named Georges Beloit, who had been shot eleven times.

Orso went to the head of the table, and told Scott to sit wherever he liked.

Scott braced himself, then averted his face when he sat so Orso couldn’t see his grimace. Taking a seat always caused a painful jolt in his side.

“Want a coffee or some water?”

“I’m good. Thanks.”

A large drawing of the crime scene leaned against the wall on the floor. Someone had sketched in the Kenworth, the Bentley, the Gran Torino, and the Adam car. Someone had sketched in Stephanie and Scott. A manila envelope lay on the floor by the poster board. Scott guessed crime scene photos were in the envelope, and glanced away. When he looked up, Orso was watching, and now Orso didn’t look like a scoutmaster. There was a focus to his eyes that hardened them to points.

“I understand talking about this might be difficult.”

“No sweat. What did you want to know?”

Orso studied him for a moment, then gave him the question.

“Why didn’t the big man finish you?”

Scott had asked himself this ten thousand times, but could only guess at the answer.

“Paramedics, is my guess. The sirens were getting closer.”

“Did you see him leave?”

If Orso read the interviews, he already knew the answer.

“No. I saw him lift the rifle. The gun came up, I laid back, and maybe I passed out. I don’t know.”

Later, in the hospital, they told him he had passed out from blood loss.

“Did you hear them leave?”

“No.”

“Doors closing?”

“No.”

“Were you awake when the paramedics arrived?”

“What did they say?”

“I’m asking you.”

“The rifle came up, I put my head back, and then I was in the hospital.”

Scott’s shoulder was killing him. A deep ache, as if his muscles were turning to stone. The ache spread across his back as if the scar tissue was splitting apart.

Orso slowly nodded, then made a crooked shrug.

“The sirens are a good bet, but you never know. When you slumped back, maybe he thought you were dead. Maybe he was out of ammo. Gun might have jammed. One day we’ll ask him.”

Orso picked up a slender report, and leaned back.

“Point is, you were hearing just fine until you passed out. Here in your statements, you mentioned you and Officer Anders were talking about how quiet it was. You stated she turned off the car so you could hear the silence.”

Scott felt his face flush, and a stab of guilt up through the center of his chest.

“Yes, sir. That was on me. I asked her to turn off the vehicle.”

“You hear anything?”

“It was quiet.”

“I get it was quiet, but how quiet? Were there background sounds?”

“I dunno. Maybe the freeway.”

“Don’t guess. Voices on the next block? Barking? A noise that stood out?”

Scott wondered what Orso was going for. Neither Melon nor Stengler had asked him about background sounds.

“Nothing I recall.”

“A door closing? An engine starting?”

“It was quiet. What are you digging at?”

Orso swiveled toward the crime scene poster. He leaned toward it and touched the side street from which the Kenworth had come. A blue X had been drawn on a storefront three doors from the intersection.

“A store here was burglarized the night you were shot. The owner says it happened after eight, which was when he locked up, but before seven the next morning. We have no reason to think the burglary occurred when you and Anders were at the scene, but you never know. I’ve been wondering about it.”

Scott didn’t recall Melon or Stengler mentioning the burglary, which would have been a major element in their investigation.

“Melon never asked me about this.”

“Melon didn’t know. The place is owned by a Nelson Shin. You know that name?”

“No, sir.”

“He distributes candy and herbs and crap he imports from Asia—some of which isn’t legal to bring into the U.S. He’s been ripped off so many times, he didn’t bother to file a report. He went shopping for a weapon instead, and got named in an ATF sting six weeks ago. He shit out when the ATF scooped him, and claimed he needed a full-auto M4 because he’s been burglarized so many times. He gave the ATF a list of dates to show how many times his store was cracked. Six times in the past year, if you’re curious. One of those dates matched with your shooting.”

Scott stared at the blue X that marked the store. When Stephanie shut off the engine, they listened to the silence for only ten or fifteen seconds, then began talking. Then the Bentley appeared, but the Bentley was so quiet he remembered thinking it moved like it was floating.

“I heard the Kenworth rev. Before it came out of the side street, I heard the big diesel rev up.”

“That’s all?”

Scott wondered how much to say, and how to explain.

“It’s a new memory. I only remembered hearing it a couple of weeks ago.”

Orso frowned, so Scott went on.

“A lot happened that night in a short period. I remembered the big things, but a lot of small things got lost. They’re beginning to come back. The doctor says it happens like that.”

“Okay.”

Scott hesitated, then decided to tell him about the sideburns.

“I caught a glimpse of the getaway driver. You won’t find this in the interviews because I just remembered.”

Orso tipped forward.

“You saw him?”

“The side of his face. He raised his mask for a second. He had white sideburns.”

Orso pulled his chair closer.

“Could you pick him out of a six-pack?”

A six-pack was a grouping of six photographs of suspects who looked similar.

“All I saw were the sideburns.”

“Can I put you together with a sketch artist?”

“I didn’t see him well enough.”

Now Orso was looking irritated.

“Race?”

“All I remember is the sideburns. I might remember more, but I don’t know. My doctor says the way it works is, one memory can trigger another. I remembered the Kenworth revving, and now the sideburns, so more things might start coming back to me.”

Orso seemed to consider this, and finally settled back in his chair. Everything about him seemed to soften.

“You went through hell, man. I’m sorry this happened.”

Scott didn’t know what to say. He finally shrugged.

Orso said, “I want you to stay in touch. Anything else you remember, call me. Doesn’t matter if you think it’s important or not. Don’t worry about sounding silly or stupid, okay? I want everything you’ve got.”

Scott nodded. He glanced at the papers spread over the table and the files in the box. It was a larger box and contained more than Scott would have expected, considering the little Melon shared.

Scott studied the box for a moment, then looked back at Orso.

“Could I read through the file?”

Orso followed Scott’s eyes to the box.

“You want to go through the file?”

“One memory triggers another. Maybe I’ll see something that helps me remember other things.”

Orso considered for a moment, then nodded.

“Not now, but sure. If that’s what you want. You’ll have to go through it here, but I’m fine with letting you see it. Call in the next couple of days, and we’ll set up a time.”

Orso stood, and when Scott stood with him, Orso saw his grimace.

“You doing okay?”

“That’s scar tissue loosening up. The docs say it’ll take about a year for the stiffness to pass.”

The same bullshit he told everyone.

Orso said nothing more until they reached the hall and were heading toward the elevator. Then his eyes hardened again.

“One other thing. I’m not Melon. He felt bad for you, but he thought you became a crazy pain in the ass who should’ve been pushed out on a psycho. You probably think he was a lousy detective. You were both wrong. Whatever you think, those guys busted their asses, but sometimes you can bust your ass and nothing turns up. It sucks, but sometimes that happens.”

Scott opened his mouth to say something, but Orso raised a hand, stopping him.

“No one here quits. I’m not going to quit. I’m going to live out this case one way or another. Are we clear?”

Scott nodded.

“My door is open. Call if you want, but if you call sixteen times a day, I’m not going to return sixteen calls. We clear on that, too?”

“I’m not going to call you sixteen times.”

“But if I call you sixteen times, you damn well better get back to me asap each and every time, because I will have questions that need answers.”

“I’ll move in and live with you if it means catching these bastards.”

Orso smiled, and looked like the scoutmaster again.

“You won’t have to live with me, but we will catch them.”

They said their good-byes at the elevator. Scott waited until Orso returned to his office, then gimped to the men’s room. His limp was pronounced when no one was watching.

The pain was so bad he thought he would vomit.

He splashed cold water on his face, and rubbed his temples and eyes. He dried himself, then took two Vicodin from a small plastic bag, swallowed them, then rubbed his face with cold water again.

He patted himself dry, then studied himself in the mirror while he let the pills work. He was fifteen pounds thinner than the night he was shot, and half an inch shorter because of the leg. He was lined, and looked older, and wondered what Stephanie would think if she saw him.

He was thinking about Stephanie when a uniformed officer shoved open the door. The officer was young and in a hurry, so he shoved the door hard. Scott lurched sideways, away from the noise, and spun toward the officer. His heart pounded as if trying to beat its way out of his chest, his face tingled as his blood pressure spiked, and his breath caught in his chest. He stood motionless, staring, as his pulse thundered in his ears.

The young officer said, “Dude, hey, I’m sorry I scared you. I have to pee.”

He hurried to the urinal.

Scott stared at his back, then clenched his eyes shut. He clenched his eyes hard, but he could not shut out what he was seeing. He saw the masked man with a large belly coming toward him with the AK-47. He saw the man in his dreams, and when he was awake. He saw the man shoot Stephanie first, then turn his gun toward Scott.

“Sir, are you okay?”

Scott opened his eyes, and found the young officer staring.

Scott pushed past him out of the bathroom. He did not limp when he crossed the lobby, or when he reached the training field to claim his first dog.

4.

The K-9 Platoon’s primary training facility was a multi-use site located on the east side of the L.A. River only a few minutes northeast of the Boat, in an area where anonymous industrial buildings gave way to small businesses, cheap restaurants, and parks.

Scott turned through a gate, and parked in a narrow parking lot beside a beige cinder-block building, set at the edge of a large green field big enough for softball games or Knights of Columbus barbeques or training police dogs. An obstacle course for the dogs was set up beside the building. The field was circled by a tall chain-link fence, and hidden from public view by thick green hedges.

Scott parked by the building, and saw several officers working their dogs as he got out of his car. A K-9 Sergeant named Mace Styrik was trotting a German shepherd with odd marks on her hindquarters around the field. Scott did not recognize the dog, and wondered if she was Styrik’s pet. On the near end of the field, a handler named Cam Francis and his dog, Tony, were approaching a man who wore a thick padded sleeve covering his right arm and hand. The man was a handler named Al Timmons, who was pretending to be a suspect. Tony was a fifty-five-pound Belgian Malinois, a breed that looked like a smaller, slimmer German shepherd. Timmons suddenly turned and ran. Francis waited until Timmons was forty yards away, then released his dog, who sprinted after Timmons like a cheetah running down an antelope. Timmons turned to meet the dog’s charge, waving his padded arm. Tony was still six or eight yards away when he launched himself at Timmons, and clamped onto the padded arm. An unsuspecting man would have gone down with the impact, but Timmons had done this hundreds of times, and knew what to expect. He turned with the impact, and kept spinning, swinging Tony around and around in the air. Tony did not let go, and, Scott knew, was enjoying the ride. The Malinois breed bit so hard and well, and showed such bite commitment, they were jokingly called Maligators. Timmons was still spinning the dog when Scott saw Leland standing against the building, watching the officers work their dogs. Leland was standing with his arms crossed, and a coiled leash clipped to his belt. Scott had never seen the man without the leash at his side.

Dominick Leland was a tall, bony African-American with thirty-two years on the job as a K-9 handler, first in the United States Army, then the L.A. County Sheriffs, and finally the LAPD. He was a living legend in the LAPD K-9 corps.

Bald on top, his head was rimmed with short gray hair, and two fingers were missing from his left hand. The fingers were bitten off by a monstrous Rottweiler-mastiff fighting dog on the day Leland earned the first of the seven Medals of Valor he would earn throughout his career. Leland and his first dog, a German shepherd named Maisie Dobkin, had been deployed to search for an Eight-Deuce Crip murder suspect and known drug dealer named Howard Oskari Walcott. Earlier that day, Walcott fired nine shots into a crowd of high school students waiting at a bus stop, wounding three and killing a fourteen-year-old girl named Tashira Johnson. When LAPD ground and air support units trapped Walcott in a nearby neighborhood, Leland and Maisie Dobkin were called out to locate the suspect, who was believed to be armed, dangerous, and hiding somewhere within a group of four neighboring properties. Leland and Maisie cleared the first property easily enough, then moved into the adjoining backyard of a house then occupied by another Crip gangbanger, Eustis Simpson. Unknown to officers at the time, Simpson kept two enormous male Rottweiler-mastiff mixed-breeds on his property, both of which were scarred and vicious veterans of Simpson’s illegal dogfighting business.

When Leland and Maisie Dobkin entered Simpson’s backyard that day, both dogs charged from beneath the house and attacked Maisie Dobkin. The first dog, which weighed one hundred forty pounds, hit Maisie so hard she rolled upside down. He buried his teeth into Maisie’s neck, pinning her down, as the second dog, which weighed almost as much, grabbed her right hind leg and shook it like a terrier shakes a rat. Maisie screamed. Dominick Leland could have done something silly like run for a garden hose or waste time with pepper spray, but Maisie would be dead in seconds, so Leland waded into the fight. He kneed the dog biting her leg to clear a line of fire, pushed his Beretta into the attacker’s back, and pulled the trigger. He then grabbed the other dog’s face with his free hand to make the dog release Maisie’s neck. The overgrown monster bit Leland’s hand, and Leland shot the sonofabitch twice, but not before the big dog took his pinky and ring finger. Leland later said he never felt the bite, and never knew the fingers were missing, until he put Maisie into the ambulance and demanded the paramedics rush her to the closest veterinarian. Both Leland and Maisie Dobkin recovered, and worked together for another six years until Maisie Dobkin retired. Leland still kept the official LAPD picture of himself and Maisie Dobkin on the wall of his office. He kept pictures of himself with all the dogs who had been his partners.

Leland scowled when he saw Scott, but Scott didn’t take it personally. Leland scowled at everyone and everything except his dogs.

Leland uncrossed his arms, and entered the building.

“C’mon, now, let’s see what we have.”

The building was divided into two small offices, a general meeting room, and a kennel. The K-9 Platoon used the facility only for training and evaluations, and did not staff the building on a full-time basis.

Scott followed Leland past the offices and into the kennel, Leland talking as they walked. Eight chain-link dog runs with chain-link gates lined the left side of the kennel, with a walkway leading past them to a door at the end of the building. The runs were four feet wide and eight feet deep, with floor-to-ceiling sides. The floor was a concrete slab with built-in drains, so the room could be washed and rinsed with hoses. When the training dogs lived here, Scott and his two classmates, Amy Barber and Seymore Perkins, had begun every morning by scooping up dog shit and washing the floor with disinfectant. This gave the kennel a medicinal smell.

Leland said, “Perkins is getting Jimmy Riggs’ dog, Spider. I think they will be a good match. That Spider, I’ll tell you something, he has a mind of his own, but he and Seymore will come to terms.”

Seymore Perkins was Leland’s favorite of the three new handlers. Perkins had grown up with hunting dogs, and possessed a calm confidence with the dogs, who instantly trusted him. Amy Barber had shown an intuitive feel for bonding with the dogs, and a command authority that far surpassed her slight build and higher voice.

Leland stopped between the second and third runs, where the two new dogs were waiting. Both dogs stood when Leland entered, and the near dog barked twice. They were skinny male Belgian Malinois.

Leland beamed as if they were his children.

“Aren’t these boys gorgeous? Look at these boys. They are handsome young men.”

The barker barked again, and both furiously wagged their tails.

Scott knew both dogs had arrived fully trained by the breeder, in accordance with written guidelines supplied by the K-9 Platoon. This meant Leland, who traveled to breeders all over the world in search of the best available dogs. Leland had spent the past three days personally running the dogs through their paces, evaluating their fitness, and learning each dog’s personality and peculiarities. Not every dog sent to the K-9 Platoon measured up to Leland’s standards. He downchecked those who did not, and returned them to their breeder.

Leland glanced at the dog in the second run.

“This here is Gutman. Why on earth those fools named him Gutman, I do not know, but that’s his name.”

Purchased dogs were usually around two years old when they arrived, so they had already been named. Donated dogs were often a year older.

“And this here is Quarlo.”

Gutman barked again, and went up on his hind legs, trying to lick Leland through the gate.

Leland said, “Gutman here is kinda high-strung, so I’m gonna put him with Amy. Quarlo here is smart as a whip. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, and he’s easy to work with, so I think you and Mr. Quarlo here are going to make a fine match.”

Scott interpreted “easy to work with” and “smart as a whip” as Leland’s way of saying the other dog was too much for Scott to handle. Perkins and Barber were the better handlers, so they were getting the more difficult dogs. Scott was the moron.

Scott heard the door open at the far end of the kennel and saw Mace come in with the German shepherd. He put the shepherd into a run, dragged out a large canine crate, and closed the shepherd’s gate.

Scott studied Quarlo. He was a beautiful dog with a dark fawn body, black face, and upright black ears. His eyes were warm and intelligent. His steady demeanor was obvious. Where Gutman frittered and fidgeted, Quarlo stood utterly calm. Leland was probably right. This would be the easiest dog for Scott.

Scott glanced at Leland, but Leland wasn’t looking at him. Leland was smiling at the dog.

Scott said, “I’ll work harder. I’ll work as hard as it takes.”

Leland glanced up, and studied Scott for a moment. The only time Scott recalled Leland not scowling was when he looked at the dogs, but now he seemed thoughtful. He touched the leash clipped to his belt with his three-fingered hand.

“This isn’t steel and nylon. It’s a nerve. You clip one end to you, you clip the other to this animal, it ain’t for dragging him down the street. You feel him through this nerve, and he feels you, and what flows through here flows both ways—anxiety, fear, discipline, approval—right through this nerve without you and your dog ever even having to look at each other, without you ever having to say a word. He can feel it, and you can feel it, too.”

Leland let go of his leash, and glanced back at Quarlo.

“You’re gonna work, all right, I know you’re a worker, but there’s things work can’t build. I watched you for eight weeks, and you did everything I asked you to do, but I never saw anything flow through your leash. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I’ll work harder.”

Scott was trying to figure out what else to say when Cam Francis opened the door behind them, and asked Leland to check Tony’s foot. Cam looked worried. Leland told Scott he would be right back, and hurried away, scowling. Scott stared at Quarlo for several seconds, then walked to the other end of the kennel where Mace was now hosing out the crate.

Scott said, “Hey.”

Mace said, “Watch you don’t get splashed.”

The shepherd was lying with her head between her paws on a padded mat at the back of the run. She was a classic black-and-tan German shepherd with a black muzzle giving way to light brown cheeks and mask, a black blaze on the top of her head, and enormous black ears. Her eyebrows bunched as she looked from Scott to Mace, and back again. No other part of her moved. A hard rubber toy lay untouched on the newspaper, as did a leather chew and a fresh bowl of water. A name was written on the side of the crate. Scott cocked his head sideways to read it. Maggie.

Scott guessed she had to go eighty or eighty-five pounds. A lot bigger than the Maligators. She was big through the chest and hips the way shepherds were, but it was the hairless gray lines on her hindquarters that drew him. He squeezed past the crate for a better view, and watched her eyes follow him.

“This Maggie?”

“Yeah.”

“She ours?”

“Nah. Donation dog. Family down Oceanside thought we could use her, but Leland’s sending her back.”

Scott studied the pale lines and decided they were scars.

“What happened to her?”

Mace put aside the hose, and joined Scott at the gate.

“She was wounded in Afghanistan. The scars there are from the surgeries.”

“No shit. A military working dog?”

“U.S. Marine, this girl. She healed up okay, but Leland says she’s unfit.”

“What kind of work did she do?”

“Dual-purpose dog. Patrol and explosives detection.”

Scott knew almost nothing about military working dogs, except that the training they received was specialized and excellent.

“Bomb get her?”

“Nope. Her handler was blown up by one of those suicide nuts. The dog here stayed with him, and some asshole sniper tried to kill her.”

“No shit.”

“For real. Shot her twice, Leland says. Parked herself on her boy, and wouldn’t leave. Trying to protect him, I guess. Wouldn’t even let other Marines get near him.”

Scott stared at the German shepherd, but Mace and the kennel faded, and he heard the gunfire that night—the automatic rifle churning its thunder, the chorus of pistols snapping like whips. Then her brown eyes met his, and he was back in the kennel again.

Scott bit the inside of his mouth, and cleared his throat before speaking.

“She didn’t leave.”

“That’s the story.”

Scott noted how she watched them. Her nose worked constantly, sucking in their smells. Even though she had not moved from her prone position, Scott knew she was focused on them.

“If she healed up okay, what’s Leland’s problem?”

“She’s bad with noise, for one. See how she lays back there, all kinda timid? Leland thinks she’s got a stress disorder. Dogs get PTSD just like people.”

Scott felt himself flush, and opened the gate to hide his irritation. He wondered if Mace and the other handlers spoke about him like this behind his back.

Scott said, “Hey, Maggie, how’s it going?”

Maggie stayed on her belly with her ears folded back, which was a sign of submission, but she stared into his eyes, which possibly indicated aggression. Scott slowly approached her. She watched as he came, but her ears stayed down and she issued no warning growl. He held the back of his hand toward her.

“You a good girl, Maggie? My name is Scott. I’m a police officer, so don’t give me any trouble, okay?”

Scott squatted a couple of feet from her, and watched her nose work.

“Can I pet you, Maggie? How ’bout I pet you?”

He moved his hand slowly closer, and was six inches from her head when she bit him. She moved insanely fast, snarling and snapping, and caught the top of his hand as he jerked to his feet.

Mace shouted, and charged into the run.

“Jesus! She get you?”

Maggie quit her attack as quickly as she bit him, and once more lay on her belly. Scott had jumped back, and now stood three feet away from her.

“Dude, you’re bleeding. Lemme see. She get you deep?”

Scott pressed his handkerchief over the cut.

“It’s nothing.”

He watched Maggie’s eyes move from him to Mace and back, as if she had to watch them both because either might attack.

Scott made his voice soothing.

“You got hurt bad, big girl. Yes, you did.”

I’ll bet I’ve been shot more times than you.

He squatted again, and held out his hand again, letting her smell his blood. This time she let him touch her. He spread his fingers through the soft fur between her ears, then slowly stepped away. She stayed on her belly, watching him, as he and Mace backed out of her run.

Mace said, “That’s why she’s going back. Leland says they get fucked up like this, they’re never right again.”

“Leland said that?”

“Voice of God.”

Scott left Mace washing out Maggie’s crate, and walked back through the offices, and outside, where he found Leland on his way back.

Leland said, “You and Quarlo ready to get to work?”

“I want the German shepherd.”

“You can’t have the shepherd. Perkins is gettin’ Spider.”

“Not Spider. The one you’re shipping back. Maggie. Let me work with her. Give me two weeks.”

“That dog’s no good.”

“Give me two weeks to change your mind.”

Leland scowled the Leland scowl, then grew thoughtful again and fingered his leash.

“Okay. Two weeks. You got her.”

Scott followed Leland back inside to get his new dog.

5.

A few minutes later, Leland resumed his position outside in the spare shade cast by the building, crossed his arms, and watched Scott James work with the dog. Mace stood with him for a while, but grew bored, and went inside to get on with his duties. Leland said little. He watched how the man and the dog related to each other.

Inside, before they came out, Leland walked Scott back to the shepherd.

“Take her out back, and introduce yourself. I’m gonna watch.”

Leland walked away without another word, and waited outside. After a while, Officer James came around the far side of the building with the dog on his lead. The dog was on James’ left, which was the proper position, and did not try to range from him as they walked, but this proved nothing. The dog had been trained by the United States Marine Corps. Leland did not doubt the excellence of her training, which he had witnessed himself when he evaluated her.

Officer James called over.

“Anything in particular you want me to do?”

Me. Not us. There was your problem, right there.

Leland answered with a scowl. After a while James withered under Leland’s scowl, and went on with it. He made a few ninety-degree left and right turns, and trotted in left and right circles. The dog was always in perfect position except when they stopped. When they stopped, the dog lowered her head, tucked her tail, and hunched herself as if she was trying to hide. Officer James seemed not to notice this, even though he glanced at the dog often.

When Leland was sure James was concentrating on the dog, he slipped a black starter pistol from his pocket, and pulled the trigger. The starter pistol fired a .22-caliber blank cartridge, and was used to test new dogs for their tolerance to loud, unexpected sounds. A dog that freaked out when a gun went off was of little use to the police.

The sound cracked sharply across the training field, and caught both the dog and her handler by surprise.

James and the dog lurched at the same time, but the dog tucked her tail, and tried to hide between James’ legs. When James looked over, Leland held up the starter pistol.

“Stress reaction. Can’t have a police dog that shits out when a gun goes off.”

James said nothing for several seconds. Leland was about to ask what in hell he was looking at when James stooped to touch the dog’s head.

“No, sir, we can’t. We’ll work on it.”

“Long strokes. Start at her neck and run your hand back to her tail. They like the long strokes. That’s the way her mama did it.”

James stroked her, long and slow, but he glared at Leland instead of relating to the dog. This set Leland off into one of his tirades.

“Talk to her, goddamnit. She ain’t a stick of furniture. She is one of God’s creatures, and she will hear you. I see these goddamned people walkin’ dogs, yakking on their phones, makes me wanna kick their sissy asses. What they got a dog for, they want to talk on their phones? That dog there will understand you, Officer James. She will understand what’s in your heart. Am I just shouting at the grass and dog shit out here, or are you reading what I am telling you?”

“I’m reading you, Sergeant.”

Leland watched him stroke the dog, and talk to her, and then he shouted again.

“Obstacles.”

The obstacle course was a series of jumping barriers and climbs. Leland had taken her through the course five times, so he knew what to expect. She was fine with the climbs, made the low jumps easily, but when she reached the last and highest barrier, a five-foot wall, she balked. The first time Leland took her through, he assumed her hips hurt because of her wounds or her strength was gone, but he stroked her and spoke with her, and when they tried again, she clawed her way over, and damn near broke his heart for trying so hard. Officer James brought her to the high barrier three times, and all three times she hit the brakes. The third time she splayed her legs, spun toward James, and snarled. To his credit, James did not jerk her lead, raise his voice, or try to force her. He backed off and talked to her until she calmed. Leland knew of a hundred other things Officer James could have done to help her over, but overall he approved of James’ response.

Leland called out another instruction.

“Off the line. Voice commands.”

James led her away from the obstacle course, unclipped the lead from her collar, and ran through the basic voice commands. He told her to sit, she sat. He told her to stay, she stayed. Stay, sit, come, heel, down. She would still have to learn the LAPD situational commands, which were different from military commands, but she did these well enough. After fifteen minutes of this, Leland called out again.

“She done good. Reward.”

Leland had been through this with her, too, and waited to see what would happen. The best dog training was based on the reward system. You did not punish a dog for doing wrong, you rewarded the dog for doing right. The dog did something you wanted, you reinforced the behavior with a reward—pet’m, tell’m they’re a good dog, let’m play with a toy. The standard reward for a K-9 working dog was a hard plastic ball with a hole drilled through it where Leland liked to smear a little peanut butter.

Leland watched James dig the hard plastic ball from his pocket, and wave it in front of the dog’s face. She showed no interest. James bounced it in front of her, trying to get her excited, but she moved away, and appeared to get nervous. Leland could hear James talking to her in the squeaky voice dogs associated with approval.

“Here you go, girl. Want it? Want to go get it?”

James tossed the ball past her, watching it bounce along the ground. The dog circled James’ legs, and sat down behind him, facing the opposite direction. Leland had made the mistake of throwing the damned ball way out into center field, and had to go get it.

Leland called out.

“That’s enough for today. Pack her up. Take her home. You got two weeks.”

Leland returned to his office, where he found Mace Styrik drinking a warm Diet Coke.

Mace frowned, just as Leland expected. He knew his men as well as his dogs.

“Why are you wasting his time and ours, giving him a bad dog like that?”

“That dog ain’t bad. She’s just not fit for duty. If they gave medals to dogs, she’d have so many, a sissy like you couldn’t lift’m.”

“I heard the shot. She squirrel up again?”

Leland dropped into his chair, leaned back, and put up his feet. He brooded about what he had seen.

“Wasn’t just the dog squirreled up.”

“Meaning what?”

Leland decided to think about it. He dug a tin of smokeless tobacco from his pocket, pushed a wad of dip behind his lower lip, and worked it around. He lifted a stained Styrofoam cup from the floor beside his chair, spit into it, then put the cup on his desk and arched his eyebrows at Mace.

“Have a sip of that Coke?”

“Not with that nasty stuff in your mouth.”

Leland sighed, then answered Mace’s original question.

“His heart isn’t in it. He can do the work well enough, else I would not have passed him, but they should have made him take the medical. God knows, he earned it.”

Mace shrugged, wordless, and had more of the Coke as Leland went on.

“Everyone has been carrying that young man, and, Lord knows, my heart goes out to him, what happened an’ all, but you know as well as I, we were pressured to take him. We passed over far better and more deserving applicants to give him this spot.”

“That may be, but we gotta take care of our own. We always have, we always will, and that’s the way it should be. He paid dear.”

“I’m not arguing that point.”

“Sounds like you are.”

“Goddamnit, you know me better than that. There are a thousand jobs they could have given him, but we are K-9. We aren’t those other jobs. We are dog men.”

Mace grudgingly had to agree.

“This is true. We’re dog men.”

“He is not.”

Mace frowned again.

“Then why’d you give him that dog?”

“He said he wanted her.”

“I say I want things all the time, you don’t give me squat.”

Leland worked the dip around again, and spit, thinking he might have to get up for his own Coke to wash down the taste.

“That poor animal is unfit for this job, and I suspect the same about him. I hope to God in His Glory I am wrong, sincerely I do, but there it is. They are suspect. That dog will help him realize he is not right for this job. Then she’ll go back to that family, and he’ll retire or transfer to a more suitable job, and all of us will be happier for it.”

Leland dug the remains of the dip from his lip, dropped it into the cup, then stood to go find a drink of his own.

“See if he needs a hand with her crate. Give him the dog’s file to take home, and tell him to read it. I want him to see what a fine animal she was. Tell him to be back here at oh-seven-hundred hours tomorrow.”

“You going to help him retrain her?”

Dogs suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder shared similar stress reactions with humans, and could sometimes be retrained, but it was slow work that required great patience on the part of the trainer, and enormous trust on the part of the dog.

“No, I am not. He wanted that German shepherd, he got her. I gave him two weeks, and then I will re-evaluate her.”

“Two weeks isn’t long enough.”

“No, it is not.”

Leland walked out to search for a Coke, thinking how some days he loved his job, and others he didn’t, and this day was one of the sad ones. He looked forward to going home later, and taking a walk with his own dog, a retired Mal named Ginger. They had long talks when they walked, and she always made Leland feel better. No matter how bad the day, she made him feel better.

6.

Scott held the driver’s seat forward, and hipped the door open wide to let the dog out.

“Here we go, dog. We’re home.”

Maggie stuck her head out a few inches, sniffed the air, then slowly jumped down. Scott’s Trans Am wasn’t a large car. She filled the back seat, but had seemed to enjoy the ride from Glendale to his place in Studio City. Scott had rolled down the windows, and she lay across the seat with her tongue out and eyes narrowed as the wind riffled her fur, looking content and happy.

Scott wondered if her hips ached when she got out as much as his side and shoulder.

Scott rented a one-bedroom guest house from an elderly widow on a quiet residential street not far from the Studio City park, and parked in her front yard under an elm tree. MaryTru Earle was short, thin, and in her early eighties. She lived in a small California ranch-style home at the front of her property, and rented the guest house in the rear to supplement her income. The guest house had once been a pool house and game room, back in the days when she had a pool and children at home, but when her husband retired twenty-odd years ago, they filled the pool, created a flower garden, and converted the pool house into the guest house. Her husband had been gone now for more than ten years, and Scott was her latest tenant. She liked having a police officer close at hand, as she often told him. Having a police officer in the guest house made her feel safe.

Scott clipped the lead to Maggie’s collar, and paused beside the car to let her look around. He thought she might have to pee, so he took her on a short walk. Scott let her set the pace, and sniff trees and plants for as long as she wanted. He talked to her as they walked, and when she stopped to worry a smell, he stroked his hand along her back and sides. These were bonding techniques he learned from Leland. Long strokes were soothing and comforting. The dog knows you’re talking to her. Most people who walk their dogs take the dog for a people walk instead of a dog walk, drag the little sonofabitch along until it squeezes out a peanut, as Leland liked to say, then hurry back home. The dog wants to smell. Their nose is our eyes, Leland had said. You want to show the dog a good time, let her smell. It’s her walk, not yours.

Scott knew almost nothing about dogs when he applied for the slot at K-9. Perkins had grown up training hunting dogs, and Barber had worked for a veterinarian through high school and raised huge white Samoyed show dogs with her mother, and almost all the veteran K-9 handlers had serious lifetime involvements with dogs. Scott had zip, and sensed resentment on the part of the senior K-9 crew when he was shoved down their throats by the Metro commanders and a couple of sympathetic deputy chiefs. So he had paid attention to Leland, and soaked up the older man’s knowledge, but he still felt totally stupid.

Maggie peed twice, so Scott turned around and brought her back to the house.

“Let’s get you inside, and I’ll come back for your stuff. You gotta meet the old lady.”

Scott walked Maggie through a locked side gate and back alongside the house, which is how he got to his guest house. He never went to the front door. Whenever he wanted to speak with Mrs. Earle, he went to her back door, and rapped on the wooden jamb.

“Mrs. Earle. It’s Scott. Got someone here to meet you.”

He heard her shuffling from her Barcalounger in the den, and then the door opened. She was thin and pale, with wispy hair dyed a dark brown. She gave a toothy false-teeth smile to Maggie.

“Oh, she’s so pretty. She looks like Rin Tin Tin.”

“This is Maggie. Maggie, this is Mrs. Earle.”

Maggie seemed perfectly comfortable. She stood calmly, ears back, tail down, tongue out, panting.

“Does she bite?”

“Only bad guys.”

Scott wasn’t sure what Maggie would do, so he held her collar tight, but Maggie was fine. She smelled and licked Mrs. Earle’s hand, and Mrs. Earle ran her hand over Maggie’s head, and scratched the soft spot behind her ear.

“She’s so soft. How can big strong dogs like this be so soft? We had a cocker spaniel, but he was always matted and filthy, and meaner than spit. He bit all three of the children. We put him to sleep.”

Scott wanted to get going.

“Well, I wanted you to meet her.”

“Watch when she makes her pee-pee. A girl dog will kill the grass.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll watch.”

“What happened to her hiney?”

“She had surgery. She’s all better now.”

Scott tugged Maggie away before Mrs. Earle could keep going. The guest house had French doors in front that used to face the pool, and a regular door on the side. Scott used the regular door because the French doors stuck, and it was always a wrestling match to open them. He had a spacious living room behind the French doors, with the back half of the guest house being split into a bedroom, bath, and kitchen. A small dining table with two mismatched chairs and Scott’s computer was against the wall by the kitchen, opposite a couch and a wooden rocking chair that were set up to face a forty-inch flat screen TV.

Dr. Charles Goodman would not have liked Scott’s apartment. A large drawing of the crime scene intersection was tacked to the living room wall, not unlike the map Scott had seen in Orso’s office, but covered with tiny notes. Printouts of eight different stories from the L.A. Times about the shooting and subsequent investigation were also tacked to the walls, along with sidebar stories about the Bentley victims and Stephanie Anders. The story about Stephanie ran with her official LAPD portrait. Spiral notebooks of different sizes were scattered on the table and couch and the floor around his couch. The notebooks were filled with descriptions and dreams and details he remembered from the night of the shooting. His floor hadn’t been vacuumed in three months. He was behind with his dishes, so he used paper plates. He ate mostly takeout and crap out of cans.

Scott unclipped the lead.

“This is it, dog. Mi casa, su casa.”

Maggie glanced up at him, then looked at the closed door, then studied the room as if she was disappointed. Her nose sniffed and twitched.

“Make yourself at home. I’ll get your stuff.”

Getting her stuff took two trips. He brought in her collapsible crate and sleeping pad first, then the metal food and water bowls, and a twenty-pound bag of kibble. These things were provided by the K-9 Platoon, but Scott figured to pick up some toys and treats on his own. When he got back with the first load, she was lying under the dining table as he had seen her in the LAPD run—on her belly, feet out in front, head on the floor between her feet, watching him.

“How’re you doing? You like it under there?”

He was hoping for a tail thump, but all she did was watch him.

Orso called as Scott was heading out the door.

“You want to see what we have, can you get in here tomorrow morning?”

Scott thought about Leland’s scowl.

“I’m working the dog in the morning. How about late morning, just before lunch? Eleven or eleven-thirty.”

“Shoot for eleven. If we get a call-out, I’ll text you.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Scott figured he could leave the dog in Glendale when he split for the Boat.

When he got back with the food and bowls, Maggie was still under the table. He put her bowls in the kitchen, filled one with water, the other with food, but she showed no interest in either.

Scott had figured he would set up her crate in his bedroom, but he put it beside the table. She seemed to be comfortable there, and now he wondered if she had bothered to cruise through his bedroom and bath. Maybe her nose told her everything she needed to know.

As soon as he had the crate up, she slinked from under the table and into the crate.

“I have to put the pad in. C’mon, get out.”

Scott stepped back, and gave her the command.

“Come. Come, Maggie. Here.”

She stared at him.

“Come.”

Didn’t move.

Scott knelt at the crate’s mouth, let her smell his hand, and slowly reached for her collar. She growled. Scott pulled back and stepped away.

“Okay. Forget the pad.”

He dropped the pad on the floor beside the crate, then went into his bedroom to change. He took off his uniform, grabbed a quick shower, then pulled on jeans and a T-shirt from Henry’s Tacos. Even pulling the T-shirt over his head hurt like a sonofabitch, and made his eyes water.

When he was hanging his uniform in the closet, he noticed his old tennis stuff in a faded gym bag, and found an unopened can of bright green tennis balls. He popped the tab on the can, and took a ball so fresh and bright it almost glowed.

Scott went to the door and tossed it into the living room. It bounced across the floor, hit the far wall, and rolled to a stop. Maggie charged from her crate, scrambled to the ball, and touched her nose to it. Her ears were cocked forward and her tail was straight up. Scott thought he had found a toy for her, but then her ears went down and her tail dropped. She seemed to shrink. She looked left, then right, as if looking for something, then went back into her crate.

Scott walked to the ball, and studied the dog. Belly down, feet out in front, head between her feet. Watching him.

He toed the ball to the wall hard enough to bounce it back.

Her eyes followed it briefly, but returned to him without interest.

“Hungry? We’ll eat, then go for a walk. Sound good?”

He popped a frozen pizza in the microwave, three minutes, good to go. While the microwave was humming, he searched the fridge, and came out with half a pack of baloney, a white container with two leftover Szechuan dumplings, and a container of leftover Yang Chow fried rice. He stopped the microwave, pulled the pie, and smushed the dumplings on top. He covered it with the fried rice, then set a paper plate over it, and put it back into the microwave. Another two minutes.

While Scott’s dinner was heating, he put two scoops of kibble into Maggie’s bowl. He tore the baloney into pieces, dropped it into the kibble, then added a little hot water to make a nice gravy. He mixed it together with his hand, then took a piece of the baloney to the crate, and held it out in front of Maggie’s nose.

Sniff, sniff.

She ate it.

“I hope this stuff doesn’t give you the squirts.”

She followed him into the kitchen. Scott took his pizza from the microwave, got a Corona from the fridge, and they ate together on the kitchen floor. He stroked her while she ate, like Leland said. Long smooth strokes. She paid him no attention, but didn’t seem to mind. When she finished eating, she returned to the living room. Scott thought she was going back to the crate, but she stopped in the center of the room by the tennis ball, head drooping, nose working, her great tall ears swiveling. Scott thought she was staring at the tennis ball, but couldn’t be sure. Then she went into his bedroom. Scott followed, and found her with her face in his tennis bag. She backed out of the bag, looked at him, then walked around his bed, sniffing constantly. She briefly returned to the tennis bag before going into the bathroom. He wondered if she was looking for something, but decided she was exploring, then out came the sound of lapping. Scott thought, crap, he would have to keep the seat down. When the lapping stopped, Maggie returned to her crate, and Scott went to his computer. He had been thinking about the robbery Orso described since he left the Boat.

He used Google Maps to find the site of his shooting, then the satellite-view feature to zoom into the street-level view. He had viewed the intersection this way hundreds of times, as well as the location where the getaway car was found. But this time he directed the map along the side street from which the Kenworth emerged. Three storefronts up from the T-intersection, he found Nelson Shin’s shop. He recognized the location by the blocky Korean characters painted on the metal shutter covering the windows, with ASIA EXOTICA painted in English below the Korean. The paint was faded, and virtually covered by gang tags and graffiti.

Scott zoomed out enough to see Shin had the bottom of a four-story building, with two storefronts on either side. Scott continued past to the next cross street, then realized it was an alley. The street-level feature wouldn’t enter the alley, so Scott zoomed out until he was in satellite view, and looked down from overhead. A small service area branched off the alley behind the row of storefronts. Dumpsters were lined against the building, and Scott saw what appeared to be old fire escapes, though he wasn’t sure because of the poor angle. The roofs appeared to be at differing levels. Some were cut with skylights, but others weren’t. He zoomed back farther, and saw that if someone had been on the roof that night, they would have had a hawk’s view of everything that happened below.

Scott printed the image, and pushpinned it to the wall by his drawing of the crime scene. Orso had given him a good tip, and now he wanted to see the alley himself, and find out if Orso knew anything more about Nelson Shin.

He was still thinking about this at dusk when he took Maggie out. They walked until she pooped. He picked it up with a plastic bag, and brought her home. This time, he beat her to the crate, and arranged the pad. As soon as he backed out of the crate, she went in, turned twice, then eased herself down onto her side, and sighed. The way she had settled, he could see the gray lines of her surgery scars. The gray was her skin, where the fur had not grown back. It looked like a large Y laid on its side.

Scott said, “I have scars, too.”

He wondered if the sniper had shot her with an AK-47. He wondered if she understood she had been shot, or if the impact and pain had been a sourceless surprise beyond her understanding. Did she know a man had sent the bullet into her? Did she know he was trying to kill her? Did she know she might have died? Did she know she could die?

Scott said, “We die.”

He laid his hand gently on the Y, ready to pull back if she growled, but she remained still and silent. He knew she was not sleeping, but she did not stir. The feel of her was comforting. He had not shared his home with another living creature in a very long time.

“Mi casa, su casa.”

Later, he studied the picture of Nelson Shin’s roof again, and sat on the couch with one of his spiral notebooks. He wrote everything he remembered from his session with Goodman. As he did every time, he described what he remembered of that night from beginning to end, slowly filling this notebook as he had filled the others, but this time he added the white sideburns. He wrote because sometimes the writing helped focus his thoughts. He was still writing when his eyes grew heavy, the notebook fell, and he slept.

7.

The man’s breathing grew shallow and steady, his heartbeat slowed, and when the surge of his pulse grew no slower, Maggie knew he was sleeping. She lifted her head enough to see him, but seeing him was unnecessary. She could smell his sleep by the change in his scent as his body relaxed and cooled.

She sat up, and turned to peer from her crate. His breathing and heartbeat did not change, so she stepped out into the room. She stood for a moment, watching him. Men came, and men left. She was with some men longer than others, but then they were gone, and she never saw them again. None were her pack.

Pete had stayed with her the longest. They were pack. Then Pete was gone, and the people changed and changed and changed, until Maggie was with a man and a woman. The man and the woman and Maggie had become pack, but one day they closed her crate, and now she was here. Maggie remembered the strong sweet smells of the woman and the sour smell of the disease growing in the man, and would always remember their smells, as she remembered Pete’s smell. Her scent memory lasted forever.

She quietly approached the sleeping man. She sniffed the hair on his head, and his ears, and mouth, and the breath he exhaled. Each had its own distinct flavor and taste. She sniffed along the length of his body, noting the smells of his T-shirt and watch and belt and pants and socks, and the different living smells of his man-body parts beneath the clothes. And as she smelled, she heard his heart beat and the blood move through his veins and his breathing, and the sounds of his living body.

When she finished learning the man, she quietly walked along the edge of the room, sniffing the base of the walls, and the windows and along the doors where the cool night air leaked through small openings and the smells from outside were strongest. She smelled rats eating oranges in the trees outside, the pungent scent of withered roses, the bright fresh smells of leaves and grass, and the acidic smell of ants marching along the outer wall.

Maggie’s long German shepherd nose had more than two hundred twenty-five million scent receptors. This was as many as a beagle, forty-five times more than the man, and was bettered only by a few of her hound cousins. A full eighth of her brain was devoted to her nose, giving her a sense of smell ten thousand times better than the sleeping man’s, and more sensitive than any scientific device. If taught the smell of a particular man’s urine, she could recognize and identify that same smell if only a single drop were diluted in a full-sized swimming pool.

Continuing around the room, she smelled the bits of leaves and grass the man carried inside after their walk, and followed the trails left by mice across the floor. She recognized the paths left by living roaches, and knew where the bodies of dead roaches and silverfish and beetles lay hidden.

Her nose led her back to the green ball, where she thought of Pete. The chemical smell of this ball was familiar, but Pete’s smell was missing. Pete had not touched this ball, or held it, or thrown it, or carried it hidden from her in his pocket. This ball was not Pete’s ball, though it reminded her of him, as did other familiar smells.

Maggie followed those smells into the bedroom again, and found the man’s gun. She smelled bullets and oil and gunpowder, but Pete’s scent was still absent. Pete was not here, and had never been here.

Maggie smelled water in the bathroom, and returned for a drink, but now the big white water bowl was covered, so she padded back to the kitchen. She drank, then returned to the sleeping man.

Maggie knew this was the man’s crate because his smell was part of this place. His smell was not a single smell, but many smells. Hair, ears, breath, underarms, hands, crotch, rectum, feet—each part of him had a different smell, and the scents of his many parts were as different and distinct to Maggie as the colors of a rainbow would be to the man. Together they made up this man’s smell, and were distinct from the scent of any other human. His smells were part of the walls, the floor, the paint, the rugs, the bed, the towels in his bathroom, the things in his closet, the gun, the furniture, his clothes and belt and watch and shoes. This was his place, but not her place, yet here she was.

Maggie’s crate was her home.

The people and places changed, but the crate remained the same. This place where the man brought her was strange and meaningless, but her crate was here, and she was here, so here was home.

Maggie was bred to guard and protect, so this was what she did. She stood in the still room near the sleeping man, and looked and listened and smelled. She drew in the world through her ears and her nose, and found no threat. All was good. All was safe.

She returned to her crate, but did not enter. She slipped beneath the table, instead. She turned three times until the space felt right, then lowered herself.

The world was quiet, peaceful, and safe. She closed her eyes, and slept.

Then Maggie began to dream.

8.

—the rifle swung toward him, a tiny thing so far away, but different now. Its barrel was gleaming chrome, as long and thin and sharp as a needle. Its glowing tip found him, looking at him as he looked at it, and then the needle exploded toward him, horribly sharp, dangerously sharp, this terrible sharp point reaching for his eyes—

Scott jerked awake as Stephanie’s fading voice echoed.

Scotty, come back back back back.

His heart pounded. His neck and chest were tacky with sweat. His body trembled.

Two-sixteen A.M. He was on the couch. The lights were still on in the kitchen and his bedroom, and the lamp above his head at the end of the couch still burned.

He took deep breaths, calming himself, and noticed the dog was not in her crate. Sometime while he slept, she had left the crate and crawled under the table. She was on her side, sleeping, but her paws twitched and moved as if she was running, and as she ran, she whimpered and whined.

Scott thought, that dog is having a nightmare.

Scott stood, cringing at the sharp pain in his side and the stiffness in his leg, and limped to her. He didn’t know if he should wake her.

He eased himself to the floor.

Still sleeping, she growled, and made a woofing sound like a bark, and then her entire body convulsed. She jolted awake, upright, snarling and snapping, but not at Scott. He lurched back anyway, but in that moment she realized where she was, and whatever she had been dreaming was gone. She looked at Scott. Her ears folded back, and she breathed as he had breathed. She lowered her head to the floor.

Scott slowly touched her. He ran his hand over her head. Her eyes closed.

Scott said, “You’re okay. We’re okay.”

She sighed so hard her body shivered.

Scott pulled on his shoes, and gathered together his wallet, and gun, and leash. When he picked up the leash, Maggie stood and shook herself. Maybe she could sleep again that night, but he couldn’t. He could never go back to sleep.

Scott clipped the lead to her collar, led her out to the Trans Am, and held the door so she could hop into the back seat. That time of night, almost two-thirty, the driving was easy. He hit the Ventura, slid down the Hollywood, and made it downtown in less than twenty minutes. He had made the same drive many times, at hours like this. When he woke hearing Stephanie call for him, he had no other choice.

He parked in the same place they had parked that night, at the little T-intersection where they had stopped to listen to the silence.

Scott said, “Turn off the engine.”

He said those same words every time he came, then turned off the engine.

Maggie stood, and leaned forward between the seats. She was so large she filled the car, her head now higher than his.

Scott stared at the empty street before them, but the street wasn’t empty. He saw the Kenworth. He saw the Bentley. He saw the men covered in black.

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

The same words he spoke that night, this time a whisper.

He glanced at Maggie, then back at the street, only now the street was empty. He listened to Maggie pant. He felt her warmth, and smelled her strong dog smell.

“I got my partner killed. It happened right here.”

His eyes filled, and the sob racked him so hard he doubled over. He could not stop. He did not try to stop. The pain came in a torrent of jolting sobs that filled his nose and blurred his eyes. He heaved and gasped, and clenched his eyes, and covered his face. Tears and snot and spit dripped in streamers from his chin, as he heard his own voice.

Turn off the engine.

Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.

Then Stephanie’s voice echoed after his own, haunting him.

Scotty, don’t leave me.

Don’t leave me.

Don’t leave.

He finally pulled himself together. He rubbed the blur from his eyes, and found Maggie watching him.

He said, “I wasn’t running away. I swear to God I wasn’t, but she doesn’t—”

Maggie’s ears were back and her rich brown eyes were kind. She whimpered as if she felt his anxiety, then licked his face. Scott felt his tears return, and closed his eyes as Maggie licked the tears from his face.

Don’t leave me.

Don’t leave.

Scott pulled the dog close, and buried his face in her fur.

“You did better than me, dog. You didn’t leave your partner. You didn’t fail.”

Maggie whimpered and tried to pull away, but Scott held on, and didn’t let go.