Sour Grapes

graffiti on the walls of almost every building on Via Norte to know that she was in the bad end of town. The bars on every window and door were proof enough.
    Having served her time on a beat in that neighborhood as an SCPD officer, she had memories... most of them unpleasant... of events that had gone down on nearly every street corner and in almost every alley. And the occupants of many of the houses were known to her, as she had seen some of them at the worst moments of their lives. She and Dirk had sometimes been the reason those were bad moments, as they had arrested them for everything from domestic abuse to public intoxication and sometimes much worse.
    But she could also recall the good times, when she had returned a runaway five-year-old and his dog to his frantic mother, when she had arrived just in time to deliver a premature baby and managed to coax breath into the infant’s tiny lungs, when she had talked a young woman into leaving her violent boyfriend and starting a new life for herself and her children in a safe house.
    She had made a difference on these streets and inside these houses that were miniature fortresses, although that might not be obvious, looking at the neighborhood now.
    Turning the Mustang down the road where the Gorton family lived, she noticed that this street was better than some. The yards were small but well-kept, with the patches of grass watered and mowed, flower beds blooming with geraniums, nasturtiums, and marigolds.
    Savannah parked in front of 337, noting that there were no cars sitting in the narrow, gravel driveway. Francie’s mother would have left by now, and although Savannah preferred to interview a minor with a parent’s permission, the girl had been adamant about waiting until they could be alone.
    Savannah also kept her eyes open for any sign of Trent. The boy stood a good chance of becoming their number one suspect, and the sooner they located him and started keeping tabs on him, the better.
    Dirk had told her that he drove an old, restored Dodge Charger, but there was no sign of either the boy or his car.
    As Savannah walked up the sidewalk to the front door, she heard a whining, coming from the other side of the fence that bordered their property. It sounded like a dog in some sort of minor distress. She made a mental note to check on it later.
    No one came to the door when she knocked the first time, or the second, third, or fourth.
    That’s what I was afraid of, she thought. The kid got scared and decided not to talk after all.
    She walked around the side of the house to the backyard and could hear the dog next door whimpering as he followed along the opposite side of the high, wooden fence.
    To enter the rear of the property, she had to pass through a gate. The backyard had been enclosed with a hurricane fence, and she saw a small henhouse at the rear of the property. A dozen or so chickens pecked at some grain that had been strewn on the ground, and an enormous red rooster sat atop a fence post, proudly surveying his domain.
    “Chickens... Hm-m-m,” Savannah said to herself. “Not a good sign for Master Trent.”
    No one came to the back door either when she knocked. Double damn, she thought.
    “Francie,” she called out. “Francie, it’s Savannah Reid. Are you inside, honey? If you are, open up.”
    After another pounding on the door, and rapping on a couple of windows produced no response, Savannah had to admit she was licked. Either the girl had left the house, or she was inside and had no intention of showing her face.
    The trip was a write-off.
    The whining next door got even louder, and when Savannah turned around to look, she saw the source... and why he was upset.
    A gorgeous animal stood on the other side of what was a wire fence farther back on the property, beyond the wooden planking. At first, she thought he was a purebred wolf, by his long, lean legs, big feet and lush fur. But as she walked closer to him, she saw that he had pale blue eyes and the markings of a husky.
    “Well, hello, you handsome fella,” Savannah told him as she stepped up to the fence. “Aren’t you a beauty!” The dog whimpered and shook his head, as though beckoning her to come over to his side of the fence.
    “Yes, I would love to take you home with me,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure you would have Cleopatra and Diamante for lunch. Or, at least you’d try, and you’d wind up with scratches all over that pretty long muzzle of yours.”
    She