All Shots

Appleton Street is always a challenge. The street is narrow to begin with, and both sides are always lined with parked cars. I tried to focus my attention on maneuvering the van while letting the chatter take care of itself.
    “There was a TV special on a while ago about Roy Orbison,” I blathered. “With Bruce Springsteen and lots of other people. Bonnie Raitt. And Roy Orbison himself. We’re going to take Concord Avenue, this street, to the Fresh Pond rotary and then get on Route 2 and then turn onto Rindge Avenue. I have to warn you about Mellie. She’s, uh, I guess the easiest way to say it is that she’s simpleminded.” Was I quoting Francie? Who cared? “Very sweet. But you ought to know what to expect, not that I know exactly...” I went on.
    Eventually, as I was taking a breath, Grant said, “Do you ever shut up?”
    “Seldom,” I said in a tone intended to praise the dogs for the silence they were maintaining. Roy had stopped wailing, and the radio was now playing a song I didn’t recognize sung by a man with a range of about five notes. Sammy, unaccustomed to riding loose, leaned against me. “Good boy, pup,” I said. “Almost there.” We actually were almost there. There’d been almost no traffic. I turned onto Rindge and soon turned left, followed the route to Mellie’s, and pulled into her driveway. “This is it,” I said unnecessarily.
    I tried to make a plan. Grant, with Sammy’s lead in one hand and the knife in the other, would get out on the passenger side. I’d be unobserved for a few seconds before I had to follow him. My cell phone was in my purse. But if I turned it on, it would play a little tune that Grant wouldn’t miss. With almost no time at all, certainly no time to think, I reached in back of my seat. My fingers found the upper latch on Rowdy’s crate. I undid the top latch and quickly undid the bottom one. Then I got out of the van and reluctantly shut the door. Loose in the van, Rowdy just might attract attention. If he heard sirens, he might deliver ear-shattering howls that would prompt the neighbors to investigate or, with luck, to call the police. If I’d left the passenger door open, Rowdy would’ve been free, of course, but he could’ve used his freedom to end up on Rindge Avenue or even on Route 2, where he could so easily have been hit and killed by a car. I simply could not bring myself to take the chance.
     

CHAPTER 31
     
    Grant snarled at me to hurry up. His voice was rough and mean, and I felt terrified for Sammy. As I rushed past Grant and Sammy, and up the steps to Mellie’s porch, I said, “There’s nothing to be gained by frightening Mellie. She’s no threat to anyone.”
    “Always the do-gooder,” he said. “Me first. Get out of the way.” Instead of ringing the bell, he banged on the door, and when Mellie opened it, he shoved his way in. Stupid of him, really. He should’ve made sure that he was the one who shut the door. For no specific reason, I didn’t quite close the door; it remained unlocked. Leaving the door ever so slightly open was, I guess, an effort to fool myself into thinking that I was leaving something else open, too: my options.
    Although Mellie was... well, Mellie was herself. She took in this strange man and the knife he held to Sammy’s throat, and by the time I actually saw her face, she was in tears.
    I struggled to sound calm. “Mellie, we need to do everything this man says.”
    She replied in that uncontrolled, too-loud voice she sometimes used. “A bad man wants to hurt Strike.” Once again, she sounded to me as if she were repeating someone else’s words. This time, I knew whose: the words of the woman who’d left Streak in Mellie’s care.
    Mellie’s voice drew Sammy’s attention. He tried to move toward me. The most trusting and least protective of dogs, the puppy of our family, the dog we’d babied, Sammy nonetheless felt the urge to position himself between me and any possible harm. I cursed myself for having turned Sammy over to those damned handlers, Teller and that foolish Omar. Sammy knew all too well that I’d transferred responsibility for him to a pair of jerks. With his leash in Grant’s hand, he probably viewed Grant as one more Teller or one more Omar; and instead of reacting to the real source of danger, he was responding to the peculiarities of Mellie’s speech. Grant yanked Sammy’s collar, and the dog looked at me wide-eyed. Sammy wore only a plain rolled-leather buckle