Slidell visited me a few days later. I was at home, forced leave, Larabee’s order.

“Nice scarf.”

Doris’s leash had turned my neck into a Monet landscape of purple and yellow. I was covering the bruises with a bandanna featuring test tubes and beakers, a giveaway from some forensics outfit looking for business. Geek chic.

“Souvenir?” Skinny gestured at the Rottweiler asleep on the floor.

“Temporary boarder.” Hoarse.

After we’d fled the horror show and called the cops, Blount had activated an animal rescue network. A swarm of volunteers moved in as soon as CSS released the scene. Dogs were taken to veterinarians, shelters, and homes. Most would make it. A few would not.

In the chaos, the Rottweiler and I had bonded. She was with me until a permanent home could be found. Kind of a foster arrangement. I was calling her Edie, in honor of Edith. My cat, Birdie, was calling her devil incarnate, refusing to come out from under my bed.

“Got a present waiting in your cooler.”

I raised my brows in question.

“Turns out Gaston Skip isn’t a complete waste of oxygen. Two days ago he busted a biker trail-riding through Kahn’s art-fart estate. Kid’s shitting his shorts, gives it up without a fight. Claims he wanted a peek at the legendary Hells Angels well of lost souls.”

Again the brows. Saved wear and tear on my throat.

“Seems there’s an abandoned well on Kahn’s property. Rumor has it the thing enjoyed regular intake in the eighties.”

“Bodies?”

“No. Tricycles. Of course I’m talking bodies.”

I curled my fingers in a give-me-more gesture.

“After Skip learns the kid’s story, he goes shaft-diving, does some digging and rock-lifting, finds a bunch of bones.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I’m guessing it’s the rest of your John Doe. Skip figures recent flooding washed out the four he found on the beach.”

“Edith Blankenship?”

“Your gal Doris is looking at murder one.”

“She’s OK?”

“She ain’t dancing no jigs, but she’ll pull through.”

“Motive?”

“Like I told you, door A or door B. Love or money.”

Amazing what you can ask without using words. Now I relied on upturned palms.

“Both. The old broad was totally mental for anything with feathers. Her financials showed she was donating to a boatload of birdie outfits, including the raptor center. The puppies gave her extra liquidity to take the load off birds. Blankenship intended to shut her down.”

We sat in silence a moment, thinking about that.

“We found Edith’s phone wedged between two beams in the back of the shed. Smashed to shit. But the tech boys were able to recover some pics from the memory. Dogs, kennels, a pile of rotting puppies. The kid probably stumbled across the place, wanted evidence to blow a big friggin’ whistle. Doris caught her and took her out.”

“The leash?”

“Lab guys lifted a couple hairs, some blood. They’re testing for DNA. They’re also running comparisons on the red fiber you pulled from the vic’s neck bone. It’ll come back to Blankenship.”

“Doris dumped the body?” Four words. It hurt.

“She’s tough, but for that she needed help. She has a son, retarded or slow or whatever. Works part-time as a forklift driver at some warehouse. She muscled Blankenship into the bag, then called sonny. Told him to take his rowboat way out onto the lake and toss it. Said there were dead dogs inside. Made him swear not to open the zipper.”

Sweet Jesus.

“Blount?”

“That ass-hat’s gonna live, too. Turns out our little chit-chat set the guy off. Blount liked Blankenship. Was pissed the kid got whacked. So, caped crusader that he is, he goes snooping, stumbles across Doris’s shit show. Poetic, ain’t it? The old lady belts him with a shovel, he uses the same shovel to belt her back.”

“The Olsens?”

“I’m guessing Casanova’s investing in flowers.”

“His wife found out?”

Slidell shrugged. “Not from me.”

Way to go, Skinny.

“Emmett Kahn?”

“Investing in fencing. Oh, and you’re gonna love this. He’s commissioned one of his bohemian buddies to make a giant owl sculpture. Plans to call it Essence of Edith.”

With that, he took his leave.

So my John Doe might be a fallen Hells Angel. Made sense. Arthritic lower back from years of bouncing on a Harley. Burned ankle from contact with a hot exhaust pipe.

I pictured Edith roaming the woods, eyes moving from the trees to the ground at her feet. Finding a pellet and slipping it into her pocket.

Not knowing she had but a pocketful of hours to live.

But I didn’t want to think about death today. Finally take that jog around the Booty Loop? Go for a drive? Bad idea in a scarf. Ask Isadora Duncan.

Edie padded over and placed her chin in my lap. I rubbed her ears. She rolled big caramel eyes up to mine. Rotated the eyebrow whiskers above them.

I thought about the horror she’d survived. Feared the memories would stay with her always. As they would with me.

Still, she found love in her heart for humans. I hoped I’d always be like Edie. Given my line of work, I am sometimes pessimistic about my species. But I do understand. The good in humanity outweighs the bad.

Suddenly, I knew what to do with my day. I grabbed my phone and dialed a friend at The Charlotte Observer.

“Is there still time to get an op-ed into this Sunday’s paper?” I asked.

“What topic?” she asked.

I told her.

“Deliver by five today, I’ll see what I can do.”

With Edie on my heels, I hurried to my desk, booted my laptop, and typed a headline:

OPT TO ADOPT—STOP THE HORROR OF PUPPY MILLS