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twelve
“Good to see you, Detective.” Sunny winked at her own formality as they exchanged a brief hug in the doorway of her home. She wore blue jeans and an old Underdog cartoon T-shirt and smelled like dog shampoo. Bright and cheerful as she’d always been, there was a steady calm to Sunny’s personality that had been lacking before she and Pete became a thing. Whatever Sunny had been looking for, she’d found in the quiet, confident army veteran who took many of her rescue dogs and transformed them into service dogs for military vets. “C’mon in,” Sunny said, “and I’ll fix you a scotch. I know what you like.”
“This is true.” Sean followed Sunny inside the main house, the rebuilt dog rescue in perfect view from the dining room. With its fresh wood and log cabin–style design, the building was nicer than the original, with no sign of the fire that had almost taken the whole place out. “I’m on duty,” Sean said. “I’ll just have water.”
“Sure.” Sunny disappeared into the kitchen.
Sean peered out the bay window and saw that Roger had all the rescue dogs out for playtime in the fenced-in acreage. The youthful twenty-year-old had been working at Pittie Place since he was a troubled teenager and had proved his dedication for so long that he lived in the log cabin house out back, right next to the dogs. Roger was a permanent fixture, and was most definitely not a suspect in the motorcycle theft.
“Water,” Sunny said with a smile, raising two glasses as she appeared in the dining room. “But the expensive scotch you like is still behind the bar, if you want it. I haven’t touched it since the last time you had some.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Sean took the water and slugged it back. The air was thick with humidity today, which never agreed with him. Alcohol would be a bad idea, even if he wasn’t on the job. “Let’s go out and look around. I just want to see the grounds. Get a roster of your employees.”
“Trust me, you’re not going to find that beautiful motorcycle on my property.” Sunny gestured for Sean to follow as they headed through the kitchen and out into the sunshine. “I would’ve just asked Delaney to teach me how to ride. Or, let’s be honest, I’d just ask her if I could ride on the back.”
Sean smiled, picturing the two ladies riding a motorcycle together. Bruiser Delaney in her greaser outfit up front, and Sunny on the back, all long legs and probably designer motorcycle boots, if there was such a thing. Sean smiled to himself, but then wiped it off his face as Sunny glanced over her shoulder at him. “I know you don’t have the bike, Sunny.” As soon as they were in the fenced-in yard, the dogs came rushing over, Roger keeping careful watch from afar as he walked around with a pooper-scooper.
“I can’t think of any of my kids who would take it, either.”
“You still have volunteers from the juvenile detention center?” A few of the dogs milled around Sean’s legs, wagging their tails and eyeing him expectantly. He waited until they’d calmed down before he reached out to offer pets. Most of them were bully breeds but there were a few off-brands, too, mixes of shepherd and hound and terrier. They had all been abused or neglected or dumped in some way.
“Yes.” Sunny’s voice grew tight. “I still participate in the Jobs for Disadvantaged Youth program. Which means they often come with a juvie history. But they’re all vetted. Nobody with a violent history can work here.”
“Sunny.” Sean held up a calming hand. “I’m glad you participate in the program. And I’m not suggesting you hired a motorcycle thief. I’m just checking all angles. The kids in detention are not lost causes. But they are all troubled.” Sean had been in law enforcement long enough to know the truth of the world: people weren’t just good and bad. Everybody had the good and the bad, and the way they behaved depended on a lot of different buttons being pushed. You put anybody under the right kind of stress and they’d do things nobody ever expected. “Who’s this guy?” A black-and-tan pittie stayed back from the bunch, his skinny body a glaring contrast to his large head. Sean could count every rib, and the sight made it hurt to breathe.
“That’s Harry.” Sunny’s voice went soft. “He was found in Greenview Park last month, tied to a tree. He’d been left to starve. He was there for weeks. Drank rainwater and ate mud. We weren’t sure he was going to make it. But you did, didn’t you? Yes, you did, my good boy.” Sunny squatted down and opened her arms. Harry trotted over and rested his head right on her shoulder, like he was giving her a hug.
Sean’s heart broke a little bit, like it always did when he was here. Of all the things he saw on a daily basis, it was the starved, abused dog hugging his rescuer that made Sean want to cry. He cleared his throat. “Where’s the one who escapes? The one who goes to Delaney’s shop?”
Sunny glanced up from behind Harry’s head, her arms around the dog’s skinny shoulders. “Wyatt’s with Pete, getting trained. Delaney renamed him. After theEasy Ridercharacter? I guess he liked her motorcycle. The one that got stolen.”
“Well, that fits.”
“Yep.”
“Can you show me how he’d get out?” Sean surveyed the wide expanse of land. There was the main house, where Sunny lived, with Roger’s separate quarters in the back, where the quarters for the dogs was attached—all rebuilt after the fire last year—and then about a half dozen cabins all along Sunny’s acreage that she rented out seasonally for semi-rustic vacationers.
“Sure.” Sunny waved a hand. They walked along the wooden fence, out of view from Roger’s quarters. Sunny pointed out a couple of places where the dog had dug under, which were refilled with dirt and logs. “The ground has been soft from so much rain. He’s the only one of the bunch who digs or who wants to escape. All the others are happy as pigs in mud to be here. The fence runs pretty far, but all the cabins are outside it. I don’t need renters having instant access to my rescues.” Sunny stared into the woods, where a path that led to the cabins disappeared. “Roger keeps a pretty good eye, but sometimes he’d lose track of Wyatt and then he’d be gone. The couple times he got out at night, he was slipping out a back door Roger hadn’t locked. Wyatt could pull down the door handle like Fezzi.” Sunny twisted her lips in a smile when mentioning Red’s three-legged pit bull who’d been trained to help their late father with various tasks.
“And you don’t think anyone might’ve been letting him out?” Sean suggested. “On purpose?”
“Wyatt always had the muddy paws to prove his crime,” Sunny said with a chuckle. “He’s just a wanderer. That was one of the reasons the original owner gave for bringing him to me. They couldn’t keep up with his physical demands.” Sunny shrugged. “Or some such bullshit.”
“You mean the Dudes?”
Sunny rolled her eyes. “Yes. The Dudes.”
“You don’t care for them.”
“I do not.”
Neither did Sean. After talking with Rawls the other day Sean had learned even more about the Worley brothers. Though they’d managed to avoid arrest, they’d been associated on multiple occasions with a biker group infamous for violence and possession charges. Dude’s Bikes was even named in an arrest report for a dozen different men picked up at an after-hours party that had turned into a drunken brawl. Sean didn’t imagine the shop was as clean as it appeared in the report, just because nothing illicit was found that night. He also didn’t imagine Dude’s Bikes to have been a fun living space for Wyatt.
“Alright, Sunny. I know you’re a busy lady. I’m not going to take up any more of your time. If it’s okay, I’ll just poke around the grounds while you get me that list of volunteers. And the renters.”
“Sure thing.” Sunny grinned. “You’re sure working your ass off on this case, Sean.”
Sean shrugged. “It’s my job.”
