Chapter Four – Hard Days #2
The phone buzzed, and Suzanne’s voice came over the speaker. “Luca’s here, Sheriff. You want me to send him back?”
I leaned over and pressed the intercom button. “Yeah. Send him back.”
I assessed Cleaver again as he took in all the images and facts I’d lined up on the whiteboard.
“It’s going to keep happening.” Cleaver was talking to himself more than to me, so I just let him ramble.
“More kids are going to OD on this nasty new combination, and whoever sold it to those kids is more than likely the person who sold the drugs that were used on Maisey and her dad.” He was quiet for a beat.
“I do need to give it some thought, Sheriff, but not because I don’t want to do it, or because I’m afraid Randy is involved somehow, but because I’m not sure how it would work.
I’m not sure he’d believe me after nearly thirty years of me playing by the rules.
So there needs to be some careful planning before we jump that way. ”
The door to the office flung open with a force that caused the black print on the bottle-glass window that still read Sheriff Dale Wylee to shake. It smacked into the ugly plaid love seat that had been in the office for as long as I could remember.
Luca blew in, skateboard under one arm, backpack dangling from his shoulder, and helmet twirling around on a finger.
It was still warm out this week, although a storm was due tomorrow, and yet my kid was wearing a sweatshirt, hood up, and a layer of scruffy hair, two months past needing a cut, sticking out from the edges.
When I’d suggested a local barber, he’d scoffed and said Dominique would kill him if he let anyone touch his hair.
And all I’d been able to hear was Eden’s voice spewing from my son’s lips.
It had pissed me off so much that I’d handled the situation wrong.
I’d told him it was a fat chance in hell I was driving back to LA just so he could get a haircut, so he’d better find someone local or not bother getting it cut at all.
He'd accepted my challenge.
“Dad! Lady Hitler out there wouldn’t let me bring Akela in,” Luca declared.
For the first time in what felt like a year, my son’s eyes held an excited light. Damn. He’d actually made a friend, and Suzanne had refused to let him bring them back?
I stood, crossing the room and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, let’s go get him.”
Luca’s eyes lit up, and he raced down the hall in front of me as my chest almost exploded with hope. Maybe we’d turn the tide. Maybe this would be the moment everything shifted.
I looked back at Cleaver as I headed out the door. “I don’t want to pressure you. You’re right that you need to consider it, but we can’t wait too long either.” My eyes shot to the whiteboard and back to him.
Cleaver gave me a curt nod. “I understand.”
I left him staring at the board while I followed my son out the door into the station’s core.
Swift Rivers was the county seat of the second-smallest county in California, and as such, the town’s government buildings were shared by both county and city officials.
The sheriff’s department had been grafted onto the back of the red-brick city hall building almost as an afterthought.
We had our own entrance, a bullpen, my office, a tiny break room, and two jail cells all to ourselves, but we didn’t even have any interrogation rooms. To question perps, we had to use my office or step through century-old, massive wooden doors and use conference rooms in the courthouse wing.
Suzanne sat behind the only addition to happen in the last twenty years—a bullet-proof glass partition. She served as both dispatcher and administrative assistant during the day. It was a power position that suited her—one she was clearly unhappy to have challenged by my son.
“Dad said I can bring him in,” Luca insisted.
The bright-red lipstick Suzanne wore only accentuated her pursed-lipped displeasure. “You are not bringing that thing into my clean office.”
That was my first clue that something was amiss with Luca’s friend.
“He’s the sheriff. You can’t tell him what to do,” Luca tossed back.
“I don’t care if he’s the sheriff, the governor, or emperor of the world. That mongrel is not stepping foot into this clean facility.”
“Luca,” I warned because I could see he was about to blow a gasket. “Let’s just take a step outside and talk about this for a minute.”
Luca’s joy deflated. He kicked his foot on the corner of Suzanne’s desk and then slammed his way out the doors.
As I followed him, Suzanne uttered something under her breath I was certain I should react to but chose to ignore. One drama at a time was about all I could deal with when I’d been living on caffeine and zero sleep for the last thirty hours.
As I stepped outside, a stiff breeze hit me, bringing in the scent of pine from the mountains. The last summer heat wave seemed to have broken, with dark clouds rolling in over the peaks, arriving here before night fell.
“Over here,” Luca said dejectedly. And it killed me that the moment of high I’d seen was already gone, but when I turned around to the bike racks, I understood why.
Tied to the rack by a rope was a skinny, muddy mess of an animal.
The oversized dog had a gangliness to it that said it wasn’t done growing, and it was hard to tell if it was white or gray with the layer of dirt covering it.
What I could see clearly was the way the malnourished mutt was looking at my son with stars in its eyes.
Fuck.
But there was no way I could take this on, regardless of Luca’s excitement. Between my schedule and Luca’s mood swings and minuscule attention span, the dog would never get what it needed from us.
“Where’d you find the dog, Luc?” I asked.
“Some shitheads were tossing rocks at him down by the river behind the school.”
My throat bobbed. He’d done the right thing.
“I’m proud of you for sticking up for him. But now we need to take him to the shelter. They’ll take care of him, search for anyone who might be missing him, and then find him a good home.”
“No! He’s mine, Dad,” Luca insisted, standing next to the dog and putting a hand on the furball’s head. “I saved his life, so I’m responsible for him.”
For what felt like the millionth time in the last hour, I dragged a hand over my face.
“A dog is a big responsibility, Luca, and you haven’t exactly been a pillar of trust these days. If you hadn’t been cutting class, undermining everything I told you to do, and shirking your chores, I’d consider it. But you haven’t done one thing to prove you're responsible enough to handle a dog.”
“I swear, Dad, if you let me keep Akela, you won’t have to do one thing to care for him. I’ll do it all. And I can pay for whatever he needs using the money Mom gave me.”
I wanted to give in. Let him have the damn dog. Maybe it would be good for him. Maybe it was exactly what he needed, responsibility for something other than himself. But another part of me knew this was not going to end well. That it was going to end with tears and me being the bad guy once again.
“Tell you what. We’ll take him home, clean him up, and then I’ll call the animal shelter, ask Sheila what she knows about a lost dog with his description.
” Luca’s face lit back up, and I hated diminishing it, but I had to set some rules.
“I’m not promising to keep him, Luca. I’m promising to make sure a malnourished animal gets care and finds a home. ”
“But if they can’t find his owner, and I prove to you I can take care of him, you’ll consider it?”
“Let’s take it a day at a time for now.”
“I promise I can do this!”
“Leave your board with me and walk him home. I’ll grab some dog food and meet you there. We’ll get him cleaned up and see what’s what.”
Luca flung himself into my arms, and the shock of it, after him holding me at a distance for so long, stunned me. I’d barely had time to squeeze his skinny body back, barely had time to catch a hint of sweat and grass and boy that was all Luca, when he stepped away.
And all I could think was that I was screwed.
I’d just added one more responsibility to a pile that was already tipping over.
But I’d do just about anything if I could keep the smile on Luca’s face as he walked down the street with a mangy pup beside him.
The dog wagged its tail, looking at my kid as if he’d hung the moon.
I perfectly understood the feeling.