Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

The sheriff had apparently spent Sunday recuperating from the lousy past week. His cheeks and nose were sunburned, evidence of a day in his bass boat. He looked up at her as if she'd volunteered to clean toilets.

"Records? You want to go to Records?"

"No, sir. I want to stay on patrol. But if I can't do that, I'd like to go somewhere I haven't been. Learn something new."

Annie struggled for visible enthusiasm. Sworn personnel were seldom wasted on jobs like records, but he was going to waste her no matter where he put her.

"I suppose you can't hardly cause any trouble there," he muttered, petting his coffee mug.

"No, sir. I'll try not to, sir."

He mulled it over while he took a bite out of his blueberry muffin, then nodded. "All right, Annie, Records it is. But I've got something else I need you to do first today. Another learning experience, you might say. Go see my secretary. She'll lay it all out for you."

"McGruff the Crime Dog?"

Annie stared in horror at the costume hanging before her in the storage room: furry limbs and a trench coat. The giant dog head sat on top of the giant dog feet.

Valerie Comb smirked. "Tony Antoine usually does it, but he called in sick."

"Yeah, I bet he did."

Noblier's secretary handed her a schedule. "Two appearances this morning and two this afternoon. Deputy York will do the presentation. All you have to do is stand around."

"Dressed up like a giant dog."

Valerie sniffed and fussed with the chiffon scarf she had tied around her throat in a poor attempt to hide a hickey. "You're lucky you got a job at all, you ask me."

"I didn't."

"You got ten minutes to get to Wee Tots," she said, sauntering toward the door. "Better shake a leg, Deputy. Or is that wag your tail?"

"You'd know more about that than I would," Annie muttered under her breath as the door closed, leaving her with her new alter ego.

A learning experience.

She learned she would rather have worn the giant head out of the closet and down the halls of the station, thereby disguising herself completely and avoiding humiliation. But she also learned that she couldn't put the head on without help. It was as heavy and unwieldy as a Volkswagen bug. Her one attempt to get it on threw her off balance, and she staggered into a steel shelving unit, bounced off, and went dog head-first into the paper recycling bin.

She learned she couldn't drive wearing giant dog feet. She learned there was no ventilation inside the suit, and the thing smelled worse than any real dog she'd ever encountered.

She learned York the Dork took his McGruff-detail duties far too seriously.

"Can you bark?" he asked as he adjusted her head. They stood in the small side parking lot at the Wee Tots Nursery School. His uniform was spotless, starched stiff. The creases in his pants looked sharp enough to slice cheese.

Annie glared out of the tiny eyeholes in McGruff's partly opened mouth. "Can I what?" she asked, her voice muffled.

"Bark. Bark like a dog for me."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that to me."

York's little paintbrush mustache twitched with impatience. He moved around behind her and adjusted the brown tail that stuck out the back vent on the trench coat. "This is important, Deputy Broussard. These children are depending on us. It's our job to teach them safety and to teach them that law enforcement personnel are their friends. Now say something the way McGruff might."

"Get your hands off my tail or I'll bite you."

"You can't say that! You'll frighten the children!"

"I was talking to you."

"And your voice has to be much deeper, more growly. Like this." He moved before her once again and prepared himself physically for the role, hunching his shoulders and making a face that looked like Nixon. "Hello, boys and girrrls," he said in his best cartoon dog voice, which sounded like Nixon. "I'm McGrrruff the Crime Dog! Together we can all take a bite out of crrrime!"

"Yeah, you're a regular Scooby-Doo, York. You wanna wear this outfit?"

He straightened himself at the affront. "No."

"Then shut up and leave me alone. I'm in no mood."

"You have an attitude problem, Deputy," he declared, then turned on his heel and marched toward the side entrance of the school in his stick-up-the-butt gait.

Annie waddled along behind, tripped on the steps, landed on her giant dog snout. York heaved a long-suffering sigh, righted her, and guided her into the building.

A learning experience.

She learned that she had no mobility in a dog suit and no dexterity wearing paws. She learned that she was at a gross disadvantage being able to see only a small square of the world through McGruff's mouth. Toddlers existed entirely beneath that field of vision-and they knew it. They stomped on her feet and pulled her tail. One leapt from a desktop, yodeling like Tarzan and grabbed the big pink tongue lolling out of McGruff's mouth. Another sneaked in close and peed on her foot.

By the time they finished their program at Sacred Heart Elementary that afternoon, Annie felt like a pinata that had weathered the beating of one too many birthday revelers. York had stopped speaking to her altogether-but not before assuring her he would be reporting her uncooperative behavior to Sergeant Hooker and possibly even to the sheriff. According to him, she was a disgrace to crime dogs everywhere.

Annie stood on the sidewalk outside Sacred Heart with her McGruff head under her arm and watched York storm off to his cruiser. School was letting out. A herd of third graders dashed past her, barking. A bigger kid grabbed her tail and spun her around, never breaking stride on his way to the bus.

"This doesn't look good," Josie said soberly. She stood on the steps with her arms around her backpack, her hair swept away from her face with a wide purple band.

"Hey, Jose, where y'at?" Annie said.

The girl shrugged, casting her gaze at the ground.

"You're gonna miss your bus."

Josie shook her head. "I'm supposed to go to the lawyer's office. Grandma and Grandpa Hunt are having a meeting. They let him out of jail yesterday, you know. We went to get him instead of going to church. I guess hardly anybody that breaks the law has to stay in jail, huh?"

"They let him out on bail?" Annie asked. Who would have thought Pritchett would move on Sunday? No one- that was the point. The offices were officially shut down, which made it a perfect day for clandestine maneuvers. The family didn't want the press making hay off them. Pritchett didn't want to upset the Davidsons any more than necessary. The Davidsons had a great many more friends among the voting constituency than Marcus Renard.

Josie shrugged again as she descended the steps and headed for the playground. "I guess. I don't understand, but nobody wanted to talk about it. Grandpa Hunt especially. When he got home, he went fishing all alone, and when he came back he went into his study and didn't come out."

Instead of going to the empty swing set, she sat down on a fat railroad tie that edged a patch of pansies beneath the shade of a live oak. Annie dropped the McGruff head on the asphalt and sat down beside her, rearranging her tail as best she could. On the other side of the school, the buses were roaring off.

"I know it's confusing for you, Jose. This is confusing for a lot of grown-ups, too."

"Grandma says that detective tried to beat up the guy that killed my mom, but you stopped him."

"He was breaking the law. Cops are supposed to enforce the law; they shouldn't ever break it. But just because I stopped Detective Fourcade doesn't mean I won't still try to get the guy that killed your mom. Do you understand?"

Josie turned sideways and reached out to touch a lavender pansy with her fingertip. A single tear slipped down her cheek and she whispered, "No."