Page 2 of American Hellhound
Not just anyone can put a devil dog on a leash.
One
“Mrs. Teague, can you tell me your husband’s whereabouts tonight?”
Maggie swallowed the sharp tang of bile that was pushing up her throat and said, “Of course. He was with me.” She gave him her best, most disarming cotillion smile. “And officer, you know a wife isn’t obliged to answer questions about her husband anyway.”
Officer Parsons, young and blonde and still wet behind his sizable ears, frowned at her. Looked troubled. Like she might be a battered housewife. “Is that why he married you, ma’am? So you couldn’t ever testify against him?”
She laughed. She shouldn’t have, because it made her stomach clench, and oh God, she was going to throw up. But she forced the sound out between her teeth and said, still smiling, “Bless your heart, no. He married me because he couldn’t function worth a shit without me.”
“Uh…” Parsons didn’t seem to know what to do with that. He shuffled the paperwork in front of him, the stuff Maggie knew without a doubt had nothing to do with her, and was only meant to intimidate her.
“Kenny was at the clubhouse with me all night,” she said, helpfully. “We had out of town guests in to stay and were having a party.”
It was a cool night, colder than mid-September warranted. They’d been outside, around the drum fire. Maggie could still smell the smoke inside her nostrils, which wasn’t helping the nausea. She could still close her eyes and feel Ghost’s solid strength pressed down the length of her side, feel the vibrations of his laughter through her own ribcage. Smell the liquor in his plastic cup; she hoped he didn’t figure out she was sipping ginger ale instead of sparkling wine.
The red and blue lights had shown up without an accompanying siren, and instead of Fielding, this little toothpick of a boy had climbed out of the cruiser and said he needed to speak to Ghost…and to her.
Maggie swallowed a gag and said, “Can I ask what this is about, officer?”
He looked down at the paper in his hands, chewing on the inside of his cheek, deciding. Finally, he pulled a photo from beneath the top sheet and slid it toward her.
Maggie snagged it with a fingertip and dragged it the rest of the way across the table. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing inside the ring of the camera’s flash, and then she bit down hard on her lip and breathed through her nose, willing her roiling stomach to cooperate just a few minutes more.
A brown dog lay on a sidewalk, up against a white-painted brick wall. Its coat was patchy, its ribs showing: obviously a stray. Above it, written on the wall in unsteady dark paint:The only good Dog is a dead Dog. Then:Teague, with an arrow pointing toward the dead dog.
Maggie breathed unsteadily through her mouth, finger shaking at the edge of the picture.
“It wasn’t written in paint, ma’am,” Parsons said, and slid over another photo.
This one was a grainy security footage shot of a man dressed all in black, hood pulled up over his head. He had wide shoulders, and a narrow waist, something predatory in the lean, disguised shape of him. He held a knife down low along his thigh, and his face was in shadow.
“Someone called this in about an hour ago. It’s around back of this building; that’s our wall. It’s a threat, ma’am.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” She took one last look at the man, unable to find anything recognizable about him. “Where’s the wastebasket?”
He frowned. “Behind you.”
“Thanks.” She turned around and lost her dinner into it.
~*~
Parsons brought her a cup of water and managed to reach forward and set it on the corner of the table without actually entering the room. He looked green around the gills himself when she glanced up at him.
“Can…can I get you anything else?” he asked. “Ma’am?”
Maggie tucked her hair back behind her ears, wincing when she felt beads of cold sweat at her hairline. “Am I free to go? ‘Cause all I really want is to get out of here.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure. You’re free to go. Your husband…”
“I’ll find him, thanks.” She hooked her purse over her shoulder and fought a wave of dizziness as she stood.
“Ma’am–”
“I’m fine.” And if he called her that one more time, like she wasoldor something, she was going to hit him, cop or not.
Beyond the precinct’s bullpen, Ghost and Ava sat side-by-side in uncomfortable chairs, dark heads bent together as they talked. Ava had her old man’s habit of sweeping the room before her with cautious dark eyes, taking everything in and giving nothing away. They looked very much like co-conspirators – and like father and daughter.
