But it wasn’t her at all. It was a man from County.

“P. T. Marsh?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

He introduced himself as Lonnie Fuchs, explaining that he worked for Animal Services.

“There’s a note,” Fuchs said, referring to a canine he’d been holding. “It says ‘Before euthanizing, contact Detective P. T. Marsh.’ We’ve been calling you for two days.”

“Geez,” I said, remembering now that Remy had asked for a favor for me about Harrington’s dog.

“The dog you’re planning to put down is Beau?” I asked. Referring to the tan-and-white husky-retriever mix that I’d found in the school shooter’s backyard.

“Exactly,” the man answered.

“And your facility has a capacity issue?” I confirmed. “Detective Morgan is my partner.”

“So you know then,” he said. “We can’t keep animals more than three days. Are you interested in adopting?”

“Me?” I said, surprised. “Oh no, I can’t. Apologies if I slowed down your process.”

I hung up and drove another mile, thinking about Jed Harrington, the school shooter. Of what he’d done to Kelly and me. About the tension that entered the police department when the shooting happened. And how it segued into me rooking that shrink and maybe thinking I was in better shape than I was. And how it ended in me not firing on that old man in the forest.

There was a line from Shakespeare that my mom quoted when I was a kid.

The evil that men do lives after them.

Until, of course, something good steps in its way. And stops the cycle.

I called back the number and heard the same guy’s voice pick up at County.

“Fuchs,” I said. “Give me your address. I’m gonna take that dog after all.”

23

By five p.m., I had filled out the necessary paperwork at County, and they brought Beau out from the back.

He had a tan body with a thick white ring that circled his chest, and a white stripe that meandered across his head and nose.

“He looks excited,” Fuchs said, selling it hard, even though I’d already committed. Then again, it was true. The dog was over the moon to be out of a cage. He ran to me, wagging his tail and jumping.

I sat down on the lobby floor and took the eight-foot leash into my hand, letting the dog jump into my lap and lick me.

“Okay,” I said. “It’s gonna be okay.”

I called Marvin to bring Purvis back home.

Per my new friend Lonnie at County, it was not kosher to put Purvis and Beau into my truck together, since Purvis’s smell would be in the vehicle, nor was it okay to bring the new dog home first and then get Purvis after.

So Marvin met me at the duck pond in the neighborhood and had Purvis leashed up, so the two dogs could meet on neutral turf. I parked outside my house and hustled over. As I turned the corner, I saw Marvin and Purvis, the two wandering around the edge of the water.