Robert Crais - Suspect

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.