Bloodlines

its arc. I hoped Champ’s did, too. If he lost sight of the bone? He’d assume I’d been teasing, and he’d look for the rawhide in the last place he’d seen it: my right hand. And he wouldn’t search gently, either.
    But Champ started toward the rawhide, or so it seemed. As soon as he found it, I intended to bolt for the woods and the Bronco.
    But the back door of the house banged open. Walter Simms had seen or heard the cruisers and vans. Only a few minutes earlier, he must have awakened briefly, let Champ out, and gone back to bed. At the approach of the vehicles, he’d evidently thrown on his jeans and a pair of shoes, snatched up his shotgun, and decided to get out as fast as he could. He hadn’t even pulled on a T-shirt. He was facing away from me, scanning the area on the opposite side of the house and softly calling, “Champ! Here, boy!” Simms hadn’t yet seen me, but the second he turned, I’d be in plain view. Police cruisers at the front door and someone—anyone—at the rear? And with a dead body on the property? I’d seen the body, and I’d seen how Simms treated his dogs, all but Champ, that is. Unless I acted fast, Simms would turn, aim, and shoot me.
    Only four or five yards ahead of me, Champ was ignoring his master’s voice and still searching for the rawhide. I had a few dog biscuits left in my pockets. Could I lure the Rottie toward me? The dog was a well-fed, obviously untrained pet. “Champ’s not like them others. Champ’s my dog,” Simms had said. I could almost hear him. With the police at the door, Simms was delaying his escape by searching for Champ. A man who’d do that, it seemed to me, could be trusted not to risk shooting that dog. Could I use Champ as a safety shield? Or should I make for cover? The woods? Or back into the golden’s filthy shed?
    But the Ladysmith tempted me. Walter Simms had caused immeasurable suffering. He’d starved the dogs I’d seen tonight. He’d undoubtedly caused the death of many others. He’d probably murdered a man. He was on the verge of escape, and I could stop him. If he caught sight of me? But I could take him out first. I knew I could. I could pick him off like a scurrying rat. I am, in fact, a very good shot.
    The golden, who’d been standing patiently by my side, gave a brief, soft whimper of pain. Slowly and calmly, I drew out the Ladysmith, raised it, cocked it, and took final aim at the dead center of Simms’s naked back. My hands and mouth had gone dry, but I was eerily calm. I felt complete confidence in my aim. Otherwise, though, for that half second, I felt nothing at all. The Smith & Wesson manual advises never to touch the trigger until you’re ready to fire. My target was sharp, bare, and oversized, as if an anatomist had stepped in to replace Simms’s lean, live body with a twice-life-size drawing—muscular system, trunk portion, dorsal view, outer layers stripped back to reveal the man beneath the skin. My finger had moved inside the trigger guard when an authoritative male voice shouted, “Halt! Drop it and put your arms up !”
    And Walter Simms obeyed. So did Champ, who abandoned his search for the rawhide bone and tore toward his master, across the mounds of trash and the tussocks of dry grass washed yellow in the morning light. A uniformed man appeared around the far corner of the house. Then another. And another. I decocked the Ladysmith very carefully—dangerous procedure, that— stowed it in the holster, picked up my backpack and the golden’s leash, and led her to the trail in the woods. I wasn’t going to stick around to have some veterinarian tell me that this golden couldn’t be saved. In rescuing her, I’d almost ended up shooting Walter Simms. I have no doubt that if I’d fired, I would have killed him.
     

30
     

     
    Although I had a key to the door of Steve Delaney’s apartment above the clinic, I was standing in the parking lot, hurling gravel at his bedroom window, and calling his name. Steve has two dogs, India, his U.D. shepherd, and an incredibly sweet, timid pointer bitch named Lady. Kenneled downstairs were Steve’s hospitalized canine patients and a few boarders. Once the clinic opened for the day, there’d be dozens of dogs coming in. I was so terrified of infecting them with whatever organisms my clothes and hands might carry from my predawn raid that I’d removed my boots and left them in the car before I’d stepped out. I wasn’t even willing to touch the