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It was that thought that had kept me up, tossing and turning in bed all fucking night.
Well, that and the little demon next door.
I was in the middle of counting the rotations of the ceiling fan, hoping it would lull me to sleep, when the barking started again. The dog next door had been going crazy all damn night, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, it sounded like it had laryngitis, or like it was choking on a handful of rocks.
The barking finally quieted before stopping all together, and I let out a slow, steady breath and closed my eyes, desperate to find sleep.
Bark! Bark! Bark!
“Son of a bitch!” Flinging the covers back, I climbed out of bed and stomped through my house, not bothering to turn on a single light on the way to the door. “I’m going to suffocate that dog if it doesn’t shut up,” I grumbled to myself as I stormed through the cold, damp grass in my bare feet.
The rough steps of the neighbor’s front porch scraped against the bottoms of my feet as I took them up to the door and started to bang. I didn’t know them well, or at all really. They’d moved in about a year earlier, but they weren’t exactly... neighborly. I lived on a long street that ended on a cul-de-sac. We did what we could to look out for each other, checked house plants whenever someone went out of town, swapped mail if the mailman misdelivered. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for us to have keys to each other’s houses in case of emergencies.
We had neighborhood cookouts, block parties, and the like, none of which the couple next door ever attended. They didn’t return waves from anyone who offered them, choosing to act like no one else existed.
I waited for a full minute, expecting a light to come on from somewhere inside, but the house remained dark. I knocked again, pounding harder the second time.
“Well, hello there, Deputy Clarke.”
My head whipped around to Ms. Caruthers, the little old lady who lived on the other side. She was eighty years old if she was a day, but from what I could tell, that hadn’t slowed the woman down in the slightest. She wore a light pink house coat, matching fuzzy slippers, and her short gray hair was wrapped around foam rollers, covered with a bonnet.
From beneath the bright glow of her porch light, I could see her look me up and down. “Lookin’ mighty fine tonight.”
I glanced down and let out a muttered string of curses. I’d been so frustrated that I hadn’t stopped to get dressed before taking off. Now I was standing on my neighbor’s doorstep in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, being ogled by the octogenarian a couple doors down from me.
“Ms. Caruthers.” I called out my greeting and tipped my head at her. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”
She waved me off. “Bah. I’m a night owl myself.” Her lips curled up in a smile as she looked toward my crotch. “Lucky me.”
The incessant barking from the backyard picked up again. “Do you have any idea where the Fredericks are?”
She shrugged, crossing her arms over her ample chest and leaned her shoulder against the pillar of her front porch. “Not sure. All I know is they’ve been gone for a couple days now, and I don’t think they’re comin’ back.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The movin’ truck that was here day before yesterday. Got here early, cleared everything out, then was gone by lunch.”
Goddamn it.
The barking picked up again, and we both glanced in that direction.
“Seems they left somethin’ behind, doesn’t it?”
My chest heaved on a sigh. “Don’t suppose you’re looking to adopt a dog? Or whatever the hell it is back there making that god-awful sound.”
She let out a hearty laugh before pushing off the front porch post and heading for her door, speaking over her shoulder. “Not a chance, deputy. That’s all on you.”
“Fucking perfect,” I grumbled, scrubbing a hand down my face. I climbed down the steps and rounded the house, pushing through the back gate. I stopped short at the sight of the dog that had been making all the racket. “Jesus. How’s a little thing like you make all that noise?”
It looked up at me with its beady black eyes and let out another yappy bark.
“I know, I know. I hear you.” The chihuahua’s head and ears looked about three sizes too big for its body. Its tan fur looked matted and caked with mud, and from its tiny collar, I could see a chain that was way too heavy for the little dog, keeping it tethered to a tree.
Anger bubbled up inside me that those assholes would treat their dog so badly. Not only was in tied to the tree, but the food and water bowls that had been left out—almost too far for the dog to reach—were empty and bone dry. There was no telling when the little thing had its last meal or a drink of water.
I moved closer and its little body began to tremble as it danced around like a toy that had just been wound up. Its tail was a blur of motion as I reached down to unclip the chain from the ratty pink collar.
“Guess that answers the question of whether you’re a boy or a girl, huh?”
