“When was that exactly?”
“Maybe like Sunday before last,” he said, rolling a scrub tray over and beginning to clean Little Sister’s ear. “If I tell you something, you won’t tell my boss?”
“Never,” I promised. Because Sunday before last was the day Connor died.
“I did these stitches. Off the clock. As a favor. To the dog, not Connor. Otherwise Connor wouldn’t have had Snowflake stitched up at all.”
“That was kind of you.”
“Like I said, I did it for the dog. I can’t stand to think of an animal suffering. I had just enough lidocaine. Vets don’t part with that stuff lightly—you could stop someone’s heart with it.”
My eyes widened, but I said nothing.
“Legally, I could sew up my own dog. But someone else’s dog, it’s practicing without a license,” Harlan continued.
“That makes sense,” I said. This guy should not be telling me any of this. My diagnosis: sweet, good-looking, dumb as a bag of hair.
“So when Dr. Jehangir asks, you’ll tell her someone else did the first stitches?” he said, suddenly nervous he’d overshared.
“Totally. The dog tore his ear on a fence nail in Portland. And I got it stitched up there. I can’t remember the vet’s name.”
He looked relieved.
“So you and Connor were... I mean,arefriends?” I ventured.
Harlan shrugged. “I know him from our four-wheeling club. Saw him try to run over a bobcat once. So I wouldn’t say close friends.”
“After that you bumped him down to acquaintance?”
Harlan laughed. “Pretty much.” He had a nice smile to go with his tattooed biceps. Maybe I could set him up with Layna. But he seemed too naïve for this world.Focus, Tilly.“But I’m never doing him a favor again.”
“Because...” I prompted
“He stole my AmbienwhileI was sewing up his dog’s ear.”
Here we go. “What a special person,” I said, and then, off his blank look, continued, “I’m a mom so I try not to swear. ‘Special person’ is French for ‘asshole.’ Did Connor steal anything else? Like your lidocaine?”
“I didn’t have any more lidocaine,” he said. Dammit. “But he stole a bottle of pentazocine from me too. Not as big a deal to me since I don’t use it, but still.”
“Penta—pentaz— What’s that again?”
“Pentazocine. An injectable opioid,” he said. Off my look, he added, “It’s not like that. I have a bulging disc. When I have to pick up a bigger animal, it flares up. My girlfriend gave me the pentazocine. Well, my ex-girlfriend.”
I shivered. “Are injectable opioids generally prescribed for bulging discs these days?”
“My ex, she read on the internet that it’s fine if I don’t use that much,” he said. “I work here. I know better. But she insisted.” He’d be easy to railroad, too sweet to refuse.
The door opened, effectively ending our conversation. A bespectacledDr. Jehangir breezed in. I gave her my canned story about the fence nail in Portland, then topped it off with more lies about how Little Sister had torn his stitches at the dog park. While Dr. Jehangir set to work sewing up the dog’s ear, I considered what I’d learned from Harlan.
I wasn’t entirely convinced Connor had died of being tased. Maybe he’d shot up with the injectable opioid after the bouncer chucked him out of the club. One thing I knew for certain: He’d been wheezing when he came at Miranda. Could there’ve been OD levels of pentazocine in his system? I’d need a toxicology report to know for sure.
I knew someone who’d likely just aced her drug toxicity exam. Surely Gucci would be unsympathetic to a murdered sleaze like Connor—after all, she’d left her own abusive uncle to rot in a field. And I had a feeling she’d be excited to do some real forensics. Telling her I had a dead man in my playhouse was a calculated risk. But the time had come to take it.
“All done,” Dr. Jehangir said. “Little Sister is going to be absolutely fine. Aren’t you, boy?”
I thanked her, shot Harlan a grateful look, and headed out to the waiting room. After I set up a payment plan with the bouffanted receptionist—who smiled amenably and said, “I get it, girl. My bank accounts on E too”—I hightailed it out of there with Little Sister trailing behind me. I’d have to hurry to make it to the bus stop in time to meet the twins. And if things went as I hoped, I’d have a long night ahead of me.
Thirty-Six
