Page 74 of Into the Fire

“I went to feed him and make sure he was okay with everybody in the yard all day.” Shep lowered his voice. “That’s when Boone saw me. I was carrying his bowl.”

Boone saw him carrying a dog bowl.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell Boone that?”

“Because then I’d have to tell Boone I hid a dog on the base.”

“Instead, you decided to lie during an attempted-murder investigation.”

Shep winced. “It sounds worse when you say it like that.”

“There isn’t a better way to say it.”

He raked fingers through his hair.

“The dog explains the lie,” I said. “It doesn’t clear you. You know that, right?”

He looked at the ground for a moment, and then he looked at the woman.

“Come and get the dog, please.”

We drove back in a three-vehicle parade: Shep leading, me behind him, and the SUV behind me. At the gate, Ramirez waved the trucks through and stopped the SUV. He came around to the driver’s window with the clipboard, took the woman’s name and plate for the visitor log, and looked at Shep while he wrote.

Shep parked behind the gear shed and led us past it to a lean-to I’d already forgotten existed. It was old pole construction with a metal roof, half full of retired fence posts and a roll of fencing.

There was a dog.

He was medium-sized and dusty brown, with ribs I could count from ten feet away and one ear that couldn’t decide whether to stand up. He’d been lying on a folded blanket next to a water bowl, and when we came around the corner, he pressed himself back against the fence posts and shivered.

Then he sorted Shep out from the rest of us and walked forward, hunching low and wagging before pushing his head against Shep’s shin. He smelled of creek mud and road tar.

“Hey, big man,” Shep said, and crouched.

The woman stayed back and waited. I looked at the setup. There was a blanket, two bowls, and a gallon jug of water. A plastic food container with a lid sat tucked up on a crossbeam, out of reach.

“Show me the texts,” I said.

Shep handed the woman the dog’s lead and pulled out his phone as if he’d been waiting for somebody to ask. The first message to her was two days ago. Then her reply, then the arrangements, and then yesterday afternoon.

Shep: still on for tmrw?

It was sent an hour after the ambulance left with Nash.

“So, yesterday,” I said. “Walk me through lunch, every minute.”

The rebuild had wrapped up, Hollis called it, and Shep peeled off to the lean-to while everybody else headed for lunch. He fed the dog, changed the water, and sat with him for a few minutes. Then he came around the shed with the bowl, walked into Boone, got sent toward the food, and was at the wall eating Ramirez’s chili bread by the time anybody would’ve missed him.

It wasn’t a complete alibi, but it was close.

The woman clipped the leash, and the dog understood things were changing. He looked at Shep.

Shep crouched again and scratched behind the undecided ear. “You’re going with her. She knows what she’s doing. Better food, too. No chili.”

The dog licked his chin.

“Yeah. I know. You think I’m great. Let’s hope Boone does too.”

He stood and stepped back.