CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The door swung open just as Starr made the third knock with the hard edge of a fist, and the flash of fur had her leg in its teeth before she understood what was happening. Her brain had just enough time to form the word dog, but already she’d been knocked from the porch stairs with her hands behind her, scrabbling away from the teeth that writhed over her boot and tore through her pant leg.

Starr was pushing her other boot into its furious mouth when a big man emerged and tried to wedge a broom handle between her and the dog. From a series of outdoor kennels behind the house that Starr couldn’t see, a chorus of barks and howls sliced through the thin autumn air.

“Damn it,” the man said. “Damn it all to hell. Chak, get the leash.”

Starr, on her back, could see inside the trailer: a massive TV flickering light across the dim interior, the curtains closed. Under the snarling she heard the ticking of a Wheel of Fortune spin, then the sound of disappointment from the crowd, then stuttering applause. By the time she thought to reach for her sidearm, the dog was gone, yanked back by its collar. It wasn’t the friendly dog that had ridden with Chak in her truck when they’d driven to the crime scene by the creek, but a different one, a missile shaped like a German shepherd with humorless eyes.

A hand reached down to pull her up, and she stood three feet from the dog, which was now wagging its tail, panting for approval from the mountain of a man. Adrenaline shook her legs.

“Sorry.” It was Chak. He appeared between her and the Mountain, who must be his father, Chak looking as animated as she’d ever seen him, more so even than when he’d told her how he found the body.

“Come in, come on in,” said the Mountain. “Let’s get a good look at that leg.”

Inside, Starr sank onto a kitchen chair, its vinyl cushion whooshing air, and surveyed her leg. The uniform pants were torn and there were teeth marks in the leather of her boot. She felt the wet heat of blood on her calf, but when she lifted the fabric there were only welts where the teeth had scraped.

“Lucky,” said the Mountain, peering down at her leg. “Coulda been a lot worse.” He ruffled the dog’s ears. It sat beside him, satisfied, its eyes following Starr’s movements. Then the Mountain took in her badge.

“I hear you already met my son, Chak. Now what do you want?”

What had she wanted? Some strange need, some winged thing? The sound of her pulse rushed in her ears. She wondered briefly where she was. What she was.

The dog watched her, curious.

Starr exhaled, put a hand inside her pocket and drew out her phone.

“You know this girl?”

A dead girl stared out from a grainy crime-scene picture. Starr observed the Mountain’s eyes, his reaction, that split second of truth before the mask slid on.

“What are you asking me for? He’s the one who found her.”

“Asking everybody. When was the last time you saw her?”

“Don’t even know her.”

“You sure about that?”

Starr could feel Chak watching the Mountain, watching her.

“You’re not gonna put this on me. Not on me, not on my boy. I said he could help you, could show you what he found, but that’s as far as we go.” He turned his back to her, opened an almond-colored refrigerator and stood in the rectangle of light that poured over the peeling linoleum floor. “In fact, what you’re gonna do is get out of my house.”

“Yeah,” Starr said, pushing off the chair and standing to her full height. If he turned on her, she’d be ready. “Yeah, okay. How long have you lived here?”

“Sixteen years, thereabouts. Now get out.”

The Mountain slowly pulled a Pepsi from the refrigerator and cracked it, but he didn’t turn around. Instead, Chak rushed past Starr to the front door and opened it.

“Your dad’s a real charmer,” she said, looking back at the Mountain as she made her exit. “He have a name?”

“Denny. Uh, Dennis. Same last name as me. Spicer.” Another dog ran from behind the trailer and nosed Chak, wagging its tail. It was the same liver-spotted hound she and Chak had taken to the creek so Chak could show her the body. “Hey, uh, sorry about my dad’s dog. Princess is kind of scrappy when it comes to strangers.”

“Anybody else live with you two?”

“Just us.” Chak’s dog saw a trio of deer move across the road and went still, its muzzle and one of its front paws extended like an arrow aimed at a target.

“Oh, hey, you see them deers, don’t ya, boy?” He looked up at Starr. “You see them deers too? Don’t let them spook ya like last time.”

Starr waited until he was done laughing, until the deer moved off and the dog relaxed into a lean against Chak’s leg. She pulled from her jacket a photo she’d found in Chenoa’s room; it was of the girl and her van.

“Seen her around?”

“Nope.” Chak shook his head.

“You see this van or hear anything, from anyone around here, you come talk to me,” she said. “Come by the marshal’s office. We can talk outside, or anywhere you want. The important thing is that you tell me.”

“You’re not gonna get me in trouble, right?” Chak glanced back at the trailer door.

“Absolutely not.”

Starr left the porch and looked to make sure the curtains didn’t part, then limped around the corner of the trailer to reinspect her leg.

Chak’s dad was the only one who had answered when she’d knocked on the half dozen or so houses lining the road. She hoped Minkey was having better luck down the street.

She was surveying the surrounding houses and mapping out a plan when the sound of conversation caught her attention. Starr stepped back, pulling herself into the shadows at the end of the trailer, and watched as Minkey exited a brick house three doors down. A woman holding a child by the hand ducked under his arm, and Minkey reached back to retrieve a laundry basket that he then hefted to a clothesline strung between the house and a garden shed. While the child crouched to watch something intently in the grass, Minkey balanced the basket on a lawn chair and together he and the woman started to hang wet clothing on the line.

It was so surprisingly domestic, so companionable, that it sent an unmistakable ache through Starr. Where she’d been turned away, Minkey had gone easily.

And he too was a stranger. Or so she’d thought. Did he know this woman? She watched the ease of their interaction, Minkey stooping to tousle the child’s hair as he walked away, and then turning to offer a wave.

Starr backed farther into the shadows and then retraced her steps through a side yard to the Bronco parked a road over. A noisy flock of Canada geese created a loose V overhead, the stragglers rushing to catch up as twilight set in. They were leaving. Like she should.

Later, after she and Minkey had both been at the marshal’s office for an hour, Starr rubbed her leg, which still stung from the dog bite, and thought of Junior, his yellow dog and its strange death. And now the girl. Starr had already sorted through one box of cold cases, hoping to find a connection, anything, while Minkey hunched over a notepad, flipping through pages, at an otherwise empty desk. She walked over to him.

“Let’s head out. Start again tomorrow morning. You make any progress?”

He shoved the notepad into a pocket, then tapped a pen on the desk and leaned back in his chair, trying for all the world to look casual.

“Nothing much. You know what it was like on that street we walked. Nobody wanted to talk. I did show the picture to one woman who recognized the vic but didn’t know her name. Hadn’t seen her in about a year. I didn’t really get anywhere.”

“Nobody you knew?”

Minkey’s head snapped up in surprise. “Not a soul,” he said carefully.

Ah, there’s the lie. Minkey, she decided, would be one to watch—along with everyone else.