Paw Enforcement 02 - Paw and Order (7 page)

The participants raised their hands in the air to show their compliance with the order. The official meandered down the row, collecting the buckets for weighing.

“The last time I was entertained by teats,” said one of the rednecks, “it was at a bachelor party.”

I slid him a look. “Keep the details to yourself. This is a family event.”

He raised his palms as if in surrender. “Whatever you say, Officer.”

I stepped back from the fence, leading Brigit with me.

Seth followed, pulling his cell phone from his pocket and glancing at the screen. “I better get going. I want to get in a swim at the Y before poker night.”

“Poker night?”

“There's always a game at the station on Friday and Saturday nights. I usually lose my shirt but tonight”—he gave me a soft smile—“I'm feeling lucky.”

I walked with him to the exit gate outside, strategically keeping Brigit between us.

When we reached the gate, Seth turned to me. “How about I swing by early tomorrow morning? We can grab breakfast at the Busy B Bakery and check out the hot rods. There's a group that meets there every Sunday morning.”

I debated my response. I couldn't help but feel cautious. And, to be honest, I felt a little annoyed. I'd met Seth months ago but still knew virtually nothing about him. Though he'd agreed to answer my questions, after asking about his grandfather's issues I'd been hesitant to force open another can of worms. I'd hoped Seth would be more forthcoming on his own, but he hadn't been. Didn't he want to get closer to me? If not, was I just wasting my time with him? Was this relationship worth the trouble? I was beginning to wonder.

“Sunday's the only day I can sleep in,” I said. Not that Brigit would let me laze around all day. The darn dog always roused me by six
A.M.
to let her out to pee.

Seth's eyes darkened with disappointment. “The bakery's got great cinnamon rolls. Good coffee, too.”

I looked away for a moment, spotting Clint and Jack near the cattle barns. I turned back to Seth. “What's in it for me?”

He offered a confused smile. “Cinnamon rolls and coffee?”

“I want more than that.”

He was the one who seemed cautious now. “What do you want?”

“I want to know about your parents.”

Talking about his family seemed to be the last thing Seth wanted to do. And I wanted to know why.
I wanted to know Seth.

He stared down at me for a moment, before responding. “Okay.” He let out a long, resigned breath. “Can we talk about it after we go to the bakery?”

“Deal.”

“Good.” He turned and began to walk off.

“Hey!” I called after him. “How early is early?”

He turned back around and held up seven fingers.

“Damn,” I muttered. “That's
really
early.”

 

EIGHT

BAAAAAD DOG

Brigit

This stock show was nothing but a big disappointment.

All of those people said
cheese,
but then gave her none. Teasing her like that was downright rude. She should've bitten them while she had the chance, taught them a lesson.

She'd been sorely tempted to leap over the fence and help herself to some of that goat milk, maybe even some fresh goat meat. The goats'
baaas
as they lamented their immobilization taunted Brigit. They might as well have been saying,
I can't run away! Come and get me!
But Megan had maintained a tight grip on Brigit's leash, keeping her close.
Grrr.

Sometimes Brigit wished she could be free, run with a pack of wild dogs in the woods, bay at the moon, and hunt for prey. Then again, she liked sleeping on the soft futon with Megan, enjoyed the liver treats her partner regularly dispensed, had fun chewing on Megan's supple leather shoes. Being domesticated wasn't
all
bad, she supposed. Still, next full moon, she'd be getting her howl on whether Megan liked it or not.

 

NINE

STALLING FOR TIME

Robin Hood

She climbed the rickety steps to the front door of her parents' trailer. No easy feat in her four-inch stilettos, especially when the metal stairs shook and swayed under the slightest weight. Hell, you'd think there was an earthquake going on.

Saturday night and her two older sisters, Crystal and Heather, were parked on the couch, a bag of potato chips between them, two store-brand grape sodas and a tub of onion dip on the glass-top coffee table in front of them.
White trash food.
She bet her sisters had never had polenta or mascarpone, whatever that was.

How Crystal and Heather could be content to spend the weekend at home in front of the television she would never know. How did they expect to have any fun or meet a man if they didn't ever get off the damn sofa? Did they think Prince Charming would come trolling for his princess at the trailer park?

Of course their chances of meeting Prince Charming were slim to none, even if they did drag their asses off the couch. While Robin Hood scrimped to have her hair professionally dyed a striking platinum blond, her sisters had left theirs the plain mousy brown all three of them had been born with. While Robin Hood wore the latest fashions by trendy designers, her sisters were content with traditional Levi's and T-shirts. While Robin Hood worked out regularly to keep herself in decent shape, her sisters made no such effort, arguing that their retail jobs and helping their mother clean houses provided more than enough exercise. Though she would never understand how her sisters could be satisfied with their meager, unexceptional lives, a small part of her envied their contentedness. Things would certainly be easier for her if she lacked ambition and taste.

“Hi, honey,” called their mother from the kitchen, where she stood on two fully functional legs in front of the open fridge, her arms loaded with bottles of mustard and mayonnaise, packages of processed cheese and salty lunch meat in her hands.

She supposed she should feel guilty for misleading Evan about her mother. But it was his own fault if he'd fallen for her made-up sob story and made no effort to verify her claims. Besides, he had more than enough money to spare. President Obama might have failed to make great strides toward social justice but, without the Tea Party or a burdened conscience standing in her way, Robin Hood had successfully effectuated her own small-scale form of wealth redistribution. Still, though she'd been able to pad her wallet and amass valuable possessions via white lies and petty theft, she had no plans to stop there. Oh, no. Robin Hood could not be satisfied with small amounts of cash and trinkets. She deserved more.
Much more.

“I'm going to make your sisters a sandwich,” her mother called, now pulling a loaf of white bread from the pantry. “Want one?”

“No. Thanks.” She didn't want to live like her family. She didn't want to look like them. She didn't even want to
eat
like them.

She retrieved a towel from the bathroom cabinet and returned to the living room. After shooing her mother's mangy mutt from the recliner, she spread the towel over the chair so as not to get dog hair on her designer jeans or leather jacket.

She turned to her sisters, who'd hardly glanced up the entire time she'd been here. Though Robin Hood had come up with a plan to solve her financial dilemma, she needed some Merry Men, or Merry Women, to help. That's where her sisters came in. “Why don't you two clean yourselves up and come to the rodeo with me tonight?”

Heather's brow crimped. “The rodeo? Since when are you into that kind of thing?”

Since I figured out the event could provide some interesting opportunities.
Robin Hood lifted a shoulder. “Maybe I figured it was time to expand my entertainment repertoire.”

“Repertoire?”
Crystal rolled her eyes. “There you go again with your uppity words.”

“Yeah,” Heather said. “You're such a snob.”

It was the same old accusation she'd been hearing for years. When she had begged her mother to sign her up for junior cotillion, her mother had given her a patronizing smile. “Now, honey. Why should we pay someone to teach you how to foxtrot and eat a five-course dinner? You'll never need to know those things.”

They acted like it was a crime to want to better yourself, accused her of thinking she was better than the rest of them. They were right about the latter. She did think she was better than them. No, she
knew
she was better. They might be content to live in a tin can and barely scrape by, to scrub other people's floors and toilets, to shop at thrift stores and bag their own groceries at the Save-A-Lot. But she wasn't. She wanted more for herself.

And she was going to get it.

“Come on,” Robin Hood said. “It'll be fun.”

Crystal gestured at the TV screen. “But
The Bachelorette
is on.”

Robin Hood pointed to the DVR. “Record it for later.”

“This
is
a recording,” Crystal said.

“Then why are you complaining?” Rage and frustration boiled up in her.
Seriously. What is wrong with these people?
She looked away for a moment, doing her best to tamp down her anger. “There will be lots of cute cowboys at the stock show. Wouldn't you rather meet a guy of your own than watch some bimbo on television hook up?”

Crystal and Heather looked her way with vacuous expressions, then looked to each other, shrugging simultaneously.

“I guess we could go,” Heather said finally. “We ain't been out in a while.”

It's not
ain't, she thought.
It's
haven't been. For God's sake, did her sisters have to sound like such hicks? What an embarrassment they were. If not for the fact that they looked so much like her—without her dyed hair and high-end cosmetics, of course—she'd doubt whether they truly shared DNA.

Crystal's face brightened. “I can wear my new boots.”

Crystal had recently landed a sales clerk position at the Justin Boots outlet store on west Vickery. Though she paid little attention to the rest of her clothes, she'd always had a minor shoe fetish. It was one of the few things, perhaps the
only
thing, that Robin Hood and Crystal had in common. Given the number of new pairs of boots Crystal had brought home recently, it appeared her sister spent most of each paycheck in the store.

Their mother sauntered into the living room, two paper plates in her hands, the smell of baloney and mustard wafting in with her. “Here you go, girls.” She handed one plate to Crystal, the other to Heather.

Her sisters proceeded to eat their sandwiches, much too slowly. The two always moved as if they had all the time in the world, never seeming to experience any sense of urgency. Human sloths.

“Could you two hurry it up?” Robin Hood spat. “If we get there too late all of the good seats will be taken.”

Her sisters finally finished eating. They tossed their plates in the garbage can in the kitchen, went to their bedroom for jackets and footwear, then grabbed their purses from the hooks next to the front door.

She let out a long exhale. Heather and Crystal had two and four years on her, respectively, but Robin Hood far surpassed them in experience and intelligence. She seemed to be the only one with detectable brain activity.

Her sisters' stupidity could be irritating at times but, on the other hand, it made them easy to manipulate. Hell, Robin Hood had been doing it for years. Feigning heartbreak over fictitious boyfriends so they'd pity her and do her chores while she wallowed in bed with the latest
People
magazine. Borrowing money from them for specious purposes with promises of repayment that would never come. Convincing them to distract the sales clerk while she pocketed a $15 lip gloss at the Lancôme counter. They were like putty in her hands.
Silly Putty.

She pulled out her compact to check her makeup. “You both might want to brush your teeth so you don't smell like onion dip,” she suggested. “And, Heather, for God's sake! Get that grape soda stain off your upper lip.”

Her sisters exchanged looks and laughed.

Crystal waved a hand dismissively. “No need to get your panties in a bunch, Li'l Sis,” she said, using the age-old nickname Robin Hood despised. “It's just a rodeo.”

But it won't be just a rodeo.

It will be a new business venture.

 

TEN

A BARREL OF FUN

Megan

Dusk set in, casting the corners and edges in shadow as Brigit and I made our way around the grounds. We strolled through the dark, expansive parking lot behind the barns, passing pickup after pickup and livestock trailer after livestock trailer. A rat scurried across the way in front of us, probably searching for morsels of errant lamb chow.

Brigit's ears perked up and she stopped, turning her head. I followed her line of vision to see three men about my age at the temporary exterior fence that had been erected around the grounds. All three wore boots, jeans, and straw cowboy hats. One held a pair of wire cutters in his hand and put it to the fence while the other two watched.

Snip.
A strand of metal curled back.

Looks like these guys are trying to sneak in without buying a ticket.

I hid behind a trailer and, as quietly as I could, radioed dispatch. “Officers needed outside the south fence,” I said. “We've got three men t-trying to gain illegal access.”

I put my back up against a trailer to make myself less visible, held Brigit close, and slowly slinked toward them.

I counted down.

One.

Two.