“What was that about?” Rex demanded, screeching to a stop on the sidewalk. He was miffed that I’d abruptly yanked him out of class. “I was going to be her helper. Helpers get snacks.”
“We’re going home,” I snapped.
“How?” Rex asked, looking around. “I don’t see a ride.”
“We’ll walk,” I said, so rattled that I no longer cared about being insane for hearing him—let alone answering. I stomped off.
Stubbornly, Rex stayed put. No amount of tugging the leash could move him. I dropped it on the ground and kept walking.
“Please, Tracey, tell me about it,” Rex begged, reluctantly trotting after me, dragging his leash along the sidewalk. “I’m an excellent listener.”
“How’s that possible when you’re always talking?” I retorted, then immediately felt a stab of guilt. Same as I’d had in the kennel, when Regan said, right in front of him, that he wasn’t cute. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Maybe that’s why I continued to talk to him.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but that subhuman with the poodle who just blew into class? He belongs behind bars.”
“Is this about your dad?”
“What? What did you say?” Stunned, I whipped around and shot daggers at Rex. How could the dog know? I mean, he obviously can’t really be talking … so how is it I heard him make a connection between that gang-hanger-on and my dad?
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” I said, storming off again.
Two kids on skateboards stopped short to stare. One twirled his forefinger by his ear, the universal sign for “nutso.”
Rex ignored them and turned back to me. “Hey, a dog learns things, living with someone. Wanna talk about it?”
“No! I do not want to talk about it.” I kept walking.
We’d gotten only a few blocks from Canine Connections when Regan pulled up. Noting the fury on my face and the force I used slamming the door, Einstein guessed, “Bad session?”
“Why don’t you tell her?” I directed my question at the four-legged backseat blabbermouth.
Regan arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow and emitted a low whistle. “Okaaay, I guess I got my answer.”
“You didn’t even get the question,” I snapped. “I’ll break it down: I’m not going back there. So if you want a certified service dog, you better clear your oh-so-busy schedule.”
“Okay,” she said lightly as she hit the gas and made a sharp left turn into a busy intersection. In other circumstances, I would have screamed, adding my terrified indignation to the screeching tires, blaring of horns, and swear words being thrown at her.
Instead, I spent the rest of the drive staring out the side window, trying not to think.
Shockingly, Regan did take Rex to his next class.
Predictably, she ended up in my room right afterward.
I knew exactly why.
I turned the volume up on my iPod. Bruce Springsteen, the Boss, as Dad called him, was rasping out “Born to Run.” Blithely, Regan arranged her long limbs on the end of my bed and pinned me with her baby-blue anime eyes. “They asked for you at Canine Connections,” she began. “They really like you—they say you’re a natural with the dogs.”
Flattery? Really? Surely she can do better than that. I started to sing really loudly, “Tramps like us! Baby we were born to run! Uh-oh-oh! Oh-oh-oh-oh, ooo … !”
Regan tried again: “I totally get why you don’t want to go back.”
I muted Bruce.
“It’s a hard class,” she whined. “They don’t let you text or take any breaks. And the smell in that room—pee-yeew!”
I turned the volume back up. The Boss had ceded to Bon Jovi and I sang out, “Oh! Oh! We’re halfway there. Oh! Oh! Livin’ on a prayer …”
“It’s because of that boy, isn’t it? He’s the reason you don’t want to go back.”
My jaw dropped and I killed the music. It took her only three tries?
But then she blew it. “He’s so obnoxious! And his little dog with those gross stunted legs kept nipping at my ankles.”
I started to say “the other boy, you moron,” but something got caught in my throat and I ended up making a cackling noise. It didn’t matter. If Regan didn’t know—and why would she, denier that she is?—there wasn’t anything I could do to change her.
She wasn’t the one who begged Mom to let her go with her to Dad’s precinct, who sat behind the one-way mirrored glass when the police questioned suspects. On November 22 of last year, Police Detective Gregory Abernathy—my dad—was leaving work when someone shot him from a speeding car. There were no eyewitnesses. The surveillance camera caught part of a license plate, and a grainy picture of the back of four heads in that car.
Experts determined that whoever shot my dad had been sitting in the front seat—most likely the driver—and was most definitely right-handed. They found the car’s owner, nineteen-year-old Hector Lowe. He was no stranger to the police. A suspected gang member, Hector had a rap sheet a mile long. They brought him and his thug buddies in for questioning. They all claimed to know nothing about a shooting.
Liars.
At that point, the police didn’t know if the shooting was a random drive-by, or the handiwork of someone who knew my dad, possibly even one of the at-risk kids he worked with. These were foster kids, neglected kids, abused kids, the kind I should feel sorry for but am mainly scared of—the kids who are bound for juvie, the Palm Beach County Juvenile Correctional Facility.
Mom didn’t want me there. The police really didn’t want me there. I talked my way in by saying I might recognize one of them, from school or something. But that wasn’t my real reason for insisting on witnessing the questioning.
I thought I would know, just by their faces, their voices, their body language, and more than anything, their eyes—which one of these monsters had cut down a truly good man, a giving and funny and caring teddy bear of a man. I was his daughter, the one who thought his lame jokes were funny, who played catch with him, who got into raptor-rock like Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi because of him, the one whose softball team he coached. The one whose fault it was that he left work early that day and stepped into the line of fire.
I should have been able to pinpoint the perp.
But I didn’t know. All I remember is a revolving door of sullen faces, belligerent denials, feigned ignorance. My dad had tried to improve their lives. Any one of them could have ended his.
Even Joey Pico—JJ to his posse. Even though he proved to be left-handed, he was the only one who admitted to being in the car that day.
That was enough for me. If he didn’t do it himself, he knew who did. The police couldn’t get anything more out of him. They had no solid reason to hold him. I’d been so disgusted, I’d sworn to never set eyes on him again.
Joey Pico was the kid who’d blown through the door at Canine Connections.